R.E.M. - Monster 25th Anniversary (2019)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by FourWalledWorld, Nov 17, 2018.

  1. lonelysea

    lonelysea Ban Leaf Blowers

    Location:
    The Cascades
    Umm, the “good stuff” is still happening.
     
    monkeyboy67 and beasandpeans like this.
  2. fallbreaks

    fallbreaks Forum Resident

    For what it’s worth, I think the reunion conversation is exactly backward. I don’t give a rip about ever seeing them live again, and I care not an ounce for them ‘trying to do’ R.E.M. for fans, for any amount of money.

    I think the four of them made outstanding albums in the early days, and quickly. They are all fabulously wealthy and there is no reason the four of them can’t set, say, a few weeks next May aside to write and record a weird album and put it out themselves or on some indie label. R.E.M. lost me when they let record label people tell them that they don’t hear a single. They’ve earned the right to do what they want and if they wanted to make an old-style R.E.M. record with the four of them - and not tour - they could.

    But they don’t want to. Which to me is a shame, and a loss to the world of music with integrity.
     
    beasandpeans and Lance LaSalle like this.
  3. DavidD

    DavidD Forum Resident

    On the flip-side, there are millions of fans who endorsed their work, and that gave Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe spectacular lives; so maybe, just maybe, it would be nice for them to do an encore if only to thank the fans. :righton:
     
  4. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing

    Location:
    Nashville
    There's plenty of good new stuff (unfortunately a lot of it never comes here, but that's another topic). But none of it is Queen, or Van Halen, or R.E.M., or any other number of irreplicable bands and sounds. We're the last people that are going to get to see any of the originators of a specific brand of music. I mean, Vampire Weekend is just Paul Simon for kids who don't remember Graceland, but...as someone too young for Graceland in 1986 but maybe just too old for Vampire Weekend in 2010, I'd rather just go see Paul Simon.

    There's great stuff now, but I feel like a lot of it (at least the stuff I feel drawn to) is just variations on old sounds. And that's okay! Prince isn't around anymore, so it's great that Janelle Monae wrote "Make Me Feel," the best Prince song in years and maybe on my favorite record of 2018. But no one's going to be Prince, y'know? So I think there's plenty of merit in going to see older acts or (some) reunion tours,.
     
    Man at C&A likes this.
  5. SoundAdvice

    SoundAdvice Senior Member

    Location:
    Vancouver
    FWIW, I can't find a photo of Stipe-Berry together after 2005 or 2006. Both were at Bucks wedding 5-6 years ago in Oregon.



    This might be the only time Stipe has done a major REM song since 2008 in public. He's done a couple slow tempo deep cuts at the Patti gigs. Here's Stipe in a 2015 interview. I just wonder if he ever wants to jump around onstage as a front man ever again.

    You’ve performed sporadically in recent years. You sang “Losing My Religion” with Chris Martin at the 12/12/12 concert, and you did that surprise opening set for Patti Smith back in December(2014). When you perform now, when it’s not your job and you’re just doing it for fun, is it different?

    STIPE: Well, no. 1, it’s not for fun because that’s not fun for me. But I love the word “sporadic” — there are two examples in the last four years that either of us are able to pull up. The 12/12/12 thing, Chris Martin asked me to do it, and what he didn’t tell me was that it was going to be broadcast live and recorded. I thought that I was going to perform to an audience in New York at Madison Square Garden one time — I didn’t know that it was going to be the thing that it became. I was doing it for the cause and I was doing it for a friend. And so that blew up in my face a little bit, but thank God I didn’t fall down onstage and I didn’t forget the words.

    The other thing was opening for Patti on her birthday, and that was really just a gift to a friend. I didn’t know what else I could give her that she would enjoy. It started as a joke, and then it turned into an actual six-song set, which was terrifying for me. But I had a great band playing with me, so I felt OK about that. It was wild to hear, honestly — I had forgotten what it sounds like to have your voice amplified in a room. That’s really shocking.

    But it wasn’t fun?

    STIPE: Well, I’m good at what I do. Sometimes great. I did manage to make it through the set again without falling on my face, so that in itself is triumphant. But also, I think I did a pretty good job.

    Bittersweet Me
     
  6. Byrdman77

    Byrdman77 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Leigh On Sea, UK
    They look so old now I'm kinda glad they split up. There's enough good stuff on those last records to have warranted them going on as long as they did but for me a lot of it feels forced and certainly not progressive. As much as I dislike Around The Sun, it felt like a progression of Reveal. The last two were attempts at reheating the souffle. Pearl Jam have been in a similar position since their Avocado album... you have nowhere to go so you go backwards.
     
  7. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    I agree. Around The Sun wasn’t very good, but it was an honest reflection of where they were at that time. Accelerate, by contrast, was a forced attempt to recapture spontaneous rock. This didn’t work when they tried it with Monster, and it worked even less well when they tried it at the end of their career.
     
    Runicen, ARK, beasandpeans and 2 others like this.
  8. uncle

    uncle Senior Member

    Location:
    Mass
    Has any more live tracks been released or has anyone heard the show in full yet?
     
  9. Davido

    Davido ...assign someone to butter your muffin?

    Location:
    Austin
    Oh boy, hope you’re not a Stones fan. Stipe and Mike and Peter look pretty good to me but i guess I’m about the same age.
     
    J_D__, beasandpeans, Binni and 2 others like this.
  10. twicks

    twicks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    When I got into music all the classic rockers (like the Stones) were already old. It has definitely been an experience watching my heroes (R.E.M., U2, etc.) age, both physically and artistically.
     
    ghoulsurgery and Spencer R like this.
  11. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    They can’t record a quick, spontaneous album on an indie label because Mills and Stipe won’t do it. After the breakup, Buck did immediately began recording quick and spontaneous albums for an indie label. But Buck has stated that, when R.E.M. was discussing whether to continue after Collapse Into Now, he pitched to the other two the very idea of downsizing and making indie albums that you suggest, and they said “no.”

    So once we’re thinking we’re not going to tour, and we’re not going to get a record deal
    probably, we talked about what we wanted to do. What we could possibly do. And there wasn’t anything that we decided we needed to do. And there also wasn’t anything that we really agreed on that we all wanted to do. 'Cause I was saying, “You know we could always do what Tom Waits does. Write a record on an independent and play theaters.” And everyone’s like, “I dunno.” That sounded OK to me, but I’m not going to push for it. You know, some people wanted to get away from it for a while.

    Peter Buck: "I think we were all really ready for a change"
     
    Runicen, ausgraeme, Binni and 2 others like this.
  12. btltez

    btltez Forum Resident

    Location:
    I'm From Detroit
    Haha. Especially since Weller said even if his kids were starving he wouldn't reform The Jam. And he has a lot of kids.
     
    Man at C&A and walrus like this.
  13. twicks

    twicks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    Kind of a bummer that they called it a day mainly because they realized they couldn't command major-label dollars anymore.
     
    walrus likes this.
  14. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    I’ll say it one last time: Buck hasn’t just accepted downsizing to playing theatres, he’s back to playing clubs. He just wants to play, and has earned enough money to do so on his own terms. It’s pretty clear that Mills and Stipe didn’t want to carry on if they couldn’t keep their star status.
     
    J_D__, Runicen and twicks like this.
  15. Byrdman77

    Byrdman77 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Leigh On Sea, UK
    Ha - yeah I do like The Stones! I'm 42 myself, I just think R.E.M would look tragic these days
     
  16. Blade123

    Blade123 Member

    Location:
    England
    If Sad Professor was on Monster, it would be the stand out track on the album.
     
    twicks likes this.
  17. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing

    Location:
    Nashville
    I swear, every other article I read about him seems like it mentions he's just had more. Wrap that thing up, man! :laugh:
     
  18. twicks

    twicks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    "Sad Professor" is the song title all my anti-R.E.M. friends latched onto around that time and brought up constantly for years. I'd be talking about their new record or going to a show and they'd snark, "Did they play 'Sad Professor'"? :laugh:
     
  19. Man at C&A

    Man at C&A Senior Member

    Location:
    England
    I've read him say he wouldn't do it even if he ended up sleeping in a pool of his own piss!

    It's probably not going to happen...
     
    btltez likes this.
  20. Blade123

    Blade123 Member

    Location:
    England
    If Leaving New York was on Monster....
     
  21. beasandpeans

    beasandpeans Forum Resident

    Monster is fine as it is. Up is fine as it is.

    Your comparisons are meaningless. Yet again.
     
  22. Blade123

    Blade123 Member

    Location:
    England
    No they’re not. And Monster isn’t fine the way it is. Hence the remix.
     
  23. uncle

    uncle Senior Member

    Location:
    Mass
    I reject your opinion.
     
    ghoulsurgery and beasandpeans like this.
  24. beasandpeans

    beasandpeans Forum Resident

    How they would look depends on a lot of things.

    I thought they looked a bit tragic with the Accelerate album already. I'm Gonna DJ is almost mid-life crisis-ish. Or Hollow Man, it starts with an absolutely beautiful verse and goes and rips into this 'let's rock this, guys' chorus. I don't mind the album itself but it does have some 'trying too hard to recapture the past' moments. I thought their last album and the UP to ATS albums were more about the band just writing good songs, not trying to impress anyone, even if some of them were misfires. We shouldn't forget the Beach Boys made an awesome album as geriatrics in 2012. As a fan, I loved it. Amazing album. Stipes voice is still perfect for studio work, live I think he would be bit dicey.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2019
    twicks and Runicen like this.
  25. TaumpyTears

    TaumpyTears Forum Resident

    Location:
    Down under
    I thought Accelerate was a damn fine album, their best in decades imo.
     

Share This Page

molar-endocrine