What do you guys think of R.E.M?

I think their version of The One I Love on Later with Jools is the best thing they’ve ever done... it’s that good. Definitely the definitive version...

 

Brewmeister, you got that right. Especially 10000 Maniacs type bands that actually have very accessible songs. Count B52s as forgotten too. The whole Athens scene of the late 80s seems forgotten. It will take some TV shows on netflix to resurrect the music of these bands.
I think the Cure's Friday I am in Love has been overused in movie trailers, but they have other songs that can use some exposure among the younguns.

As far as REM, I dont know how jangly guitar makes for a sound that sounds boring to some people. I just love it.

 

Why did you buy every album if you don't like the band?

 

I don't think it was a conscious look back. Again, my take on it is that R.E.M. was going to sound like R.E.M.. One could take any band that has been around for 20 years + and find similarities from their late, middle and early work.

 

Chronic Town to Reveal is 19 years -- I'd say they almost made it to 20 with hardly any similarities.

 

I know next to nothing about this kind of stuff, but I read that Gardening At Night and Disturbance At The Heron House also have a very similar chord progression. I bet that kind of stuff happens with many bands from time to time.

 

Enjoy the IRS stuff. In fact spent all Sunday morning playing Reckoning a few times over. Not a bad morning. Quiex vinyl...tasty!

 

My radio days started at a college station in Atlanta in 1980. As a result I was in the midst of all the new music coming out of Athens. We would routinely have R.E.M., the B52s, the Swimming Pool Qs, Pylon, etc, hanging out in the station.

The B52s were the bigger deal at the time. I don't remember ever seeing Michael Stipe in the station, but certainly the rest of them were there. All of them were great people to be around.

 

that, my friend, is the completist nightmare......i bought 'automatic for the people' liked it, enough to say, "hey, i like this band", and thought they would all be like that. little did i know that nothing else in the catalog would come even close. i think, just my own personal opinion, that the first 3 - 5 albums are simply putrid.

 

I'm about the same age as you Martin, but I was the weird little kid who played REM 45's on his little record player. I got REM albums for Christmas. So I feel they were the band I truly grew up listening to, even though I know the older kids got to go to the concerts. Plus it was fun to gradually hear their music on the radio, more and more as the 1980's progressed. But I may have been the exception, not the norm at the time!

 

I'd say their IRS albums sound fairly similar but, their Warner albums are very different. Monster, Out of Time and Automatic are extremely different. I'm not sure what your not hearing?

 

Love “Fables...”. Joe Boyd on the faders, the band in dark dreary London, struggling, almost breaking up...and we got “Feeling Gravity's Pull”.

 

For a while they were one of the best bands around, really good run from murmur to automatic for the people, hardly put a foot wrong , with some proper modern classics in murmur, reckoning, document , green , out of time and automatic.
Still made some good music from monster onwards but really changed after bill berry left , kinda shows how important the group dynamics were as a four piece.
For me they filled the gaps between the smiths breaking up and the arrival of nirvana and suede as an essential band

 

Not sure what time that quote was but if it was around 94 he may have been having a dig at oasis and the whole britpop scene that hugely praised the Fab Four , sure rem were very unimpressed with oasis and their wanna be the biggest band attitude when they supported them somewhere

 

I'm seeing a theme. About 25 years ago or so it was cool to like R.E.M. Then, when they signed with Warner Bros. it was cool to say you only liked the IRS albums. Then Berry left and it was cool to say you liked them until he left. Now it's come 180 degrees and it's cool to say you don't like R.E.M. at all. I'm not saying plenty of people really don't like the band, it's just my observation.

 

Up is 20 years old today!

 

Fine with me - more for the rest of us!

 

Great through Document. One of my favorite band periods. Green and on? Not so good, imo. They changed, and not for the better, imo.

 

After Pageant, which I just think is their strongest overall album, my next favorite REM records all come from Green and on. They got better, although I suppose less "alternative" or whatever, which was fine by me. They didn't sell out, but they got better at making records, and became more mature songwriters in the early 90's.

 

Someday, I'll give the later stuff another chance. I keep comparing to the early stuff, and I'm just sad that it's not as good. Need to listen as if it's another band. I'm sure there's some stuff in there I'll like then.

 

It's just different. I guess the fact that Murmur, Pageant, Automatic and Monster sound so different from each other is what endeared them to me as a 90's teenager. I wouldn't have wanted them to keep doing the early stuff over and over again, as great as it is.

 

Give or take. Liked some early stuff, liked some later albums. Never one to buy anything for the sake of owning it.

 

My favorite group of the 80's/early 90's. Loved every album up through MONSTER. My favorites are FABLES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION, DOCUMENT, OUT OF TIME, and MURMUR in that order.

 

Three major views that always pop up in REM threads:
1) they’ve always irritated me
2) everything they did was golden... you really need to revisit the post-Berry years because they’re actually really good
3) they were great until album “x” then there was a steep drop off.

With opinion 3, you’ll find a case for every album with Bill Berry. For the record, I’m of opinion 3. I love Out of Time and find Automatic to be meh.

 

They write and perform very catchy, often melodic songs.