I love U2's Pop and R.E.M's Monster. Long term bands are allowed to experiment rather than rehash the same sound over and over. I think both albums were both artistically successful and technically very impressive. EDIT:...buuuuuuut Monster with current remaster practices may sound painful.
I listened to this album two days ago, for the first time ever in full. I was on board back in '94, but I think I only heard Monster at dorm-room parties and such. Basically, I like it, but somehow it's one of those albums that adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Of the 12 tracks, I find 10 are at least 'good' and a few are 'great'. That sounds like a strong record mathematically, yet somehow this is still one of the weaker albums (along with Fables, I'd say) of their brilliant 1981 to 1996 Glory-years. Quick track-by-track rundown: What's the Frequency, Kenneth? = Brilliant single, great opener. Still sounds very fresh and exciting today. Crush with Eyeliner = Good track; pretty good composition but not great. I think it was a mistake putting this second off the top. King of Comedy = Quite interesting track and a bit of a departure, but I'm not sure a weird song that's essentially Stipe complaining about celebrity was good to put 3rd off the top. This is also the third in a row where his voice is really buried in the mix. I Don't Sleep, I Dream = Really good one. Much better than tracks two and three. Star 69 = This sounds like a c.1987 song they dusted off and gave the Monster production-treatment to. But it's fun, has a nice hook, and serves its purpose, I guess. The first song that sounds like R.E.M. Strange Currencies = By far the best song here, in fact this is my #1 favorite R.E.M. track ever (along with "Cuyahoga"). I get that it's harmonically similar to "Everybody Hurts", but I don't get why more fans don't anoint it one of the finest things they ever did. It's just superb. His vocal, the lyrics, and the delivery are so cool. Tongue = I enjoyed this a lot. A really nice track. (I'm guessing Mike Mills originated this one...?) Love the falsetto. Bang and Blame = This was a single, and a decent one, although it sounds kind of dated to 1994 now. But it does have a good hook and nice band dynamics. The sleazy, creepy lyric is good, too. I Took Your Name = This is one of the two I referred to as doing nothing for me. I just don't get what they were going for here. It sounds just like a bunch of other songs here, but the tune is non-existent. Let Me In = The phone call to Cobain. I wasn't expecting this to be good (having heard about it for years), but it's cool! It's surprisingly melodic when Stipe goes off on the "Heeeeeyyyy" and Bill Berry joins in. This track also doesn't sound like any of the others. Circus Envy = It's a pretty good song, but we're just repeating the exact same sounds we've already heard on five or six other tracks prior. Fortunately, the chorus is catchy and cool, which rescues the song. But the aural production comes off as an unnecessary affectation, and not as serving the song at all. Good composition, though. You = And this is the other one that doesn't do anything at all for me. Anyway, it's a solid album with the usual excellent songwriting, but... ...the songwriting, while great, is starting to veer into the lyrically arcane, which is harder for fans to relate to. There's also, as mentioned, a whiff of the "I'm a famous star now, and I'm gonna sing about it", which just turns people off. More than anything, though, I think the "problem" with Monster (which, it bears repeating, is quite a good album nonetheless) is that it is a calculated album, for the first time. They went into it knowing that it had to have a big sound for hockey rinks, and knowing that Bill Berry was basically done unless it rocked a bit. So, they added reverb to all the guitars and cranked up those guitars in the mix while turning down the vocals. All the songs have electric arrangements (maybe not "Tongue"...?), which is at odds with R.E.M.'s core sort of folk-rock style. How this self-consciousness of approach works varies from track to track -- it works well on "Kenneth" and fails on "Circus Envy" -- but, in the end, it makes the album somewhat inorganic and less than the sum of its parts.
You would think two people like Michael and Peter who lived in record stores would not allow loud masterings.
My history with REM started with "Stand" which I remember liking a lot when I was, like 11. When Out of Time and Automatic For The People came out, I was just entering my musical awakening. Then I got really into indie/alt in high school. When word came that a new REM album was coming out, I was jazzed. And when I heard that Cobain (I was obsessed with Nirvana) and Stipe had struck up a friendship and rumors of collaboration were being whispered, I was beyond excited and was thinking that the new album might blend the styles of the two bands. Then Kurt died and everything was, I don't know, confusing (to me, at least. I was 17). I also remember "Let Me In" being a song that I was really eager to hear since it was reported as a song to Cobain and at that point, I was looking for any sort of insight or answer into what had happened. Anyways, Monster dropped and it was pretty much what I had hoped for and expected. Was it a perfect album? Nah. But I thought it was a pretty interesting and a quite enjoyable listen. It was loud, a little weird at times, and very much fit my tastes for the time. And so my first concert was REM in 1995, the day after I graduated. Lucious Jackson opened. It was everything I could have hoped for and more. The old songs sounded great and the Monster tracks were fantastic. I have wanted this on vinyl for a little bit, but have always balked at the price. Now, with the reissue, I'll definitely be grabbing a copy. I can do without demos and outtakes, though. Just give me that album on vinyl and let me relive a very important time in my life.
Their original vinyl is a little bit of an improvement like most of the Warner era albums, but not a whole lot better than the CD and definitely not worth the insane prices. It took me years to piece together a complete album collection, and I was more than a bit disappointed that the later era albums on vinyl didn’t sound drastically better. A number of them sound just as good on the Hi-Rez DVD-a’s unfortunately Monster is one of the two or three I haven’t been able to find yet. I got very lucky on finding the LP and was flabbergasted to even have it. Of course I did walk into Wuxtry Athens some years ago and it was there along with some others still sealed! For the curious seek out a 12” single for much less and you can hear the overall vinyl sound for each respective album. I’ve had the Bang and Blame 12” for years and it sounds just like the LP. It’s a tad more refined sounding as an album with maybe a point or two of DR restored but that’s about it. As I’ve said before loudness creeped up on the band but really didn’t overwhelm their CDs until Reveal. It kills me that musicians either have no idea how bad their releases sound or know nothing of loudness and dynamic loss. Some may talk about the vinyl resurgence and of course Peter has released all of his solo albums on vinyl only – but I wish they knew what was happening to their catalog with each of these re-issues. I’d love to have a simple demo with original issues and the remasters just to show folks what is happening to their own material. Then again most aren’t audiophiles (Michael isn’t for sure) and are merely listening to playback over studio monitors if they attend any new remaster sessions at all.
This is a huge favorite of mine. It is also the last REM album I liked. Looking forward to the anniversary treatment for sure!
This is the only REM album I ever bought -- I have the original vinyl from 1994. It always reminds me of late-'94/early-'95 -- my friends and I really liked "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" during our last semester of college. It's too bad the album has gotten a bad rap over the years, but I'm glad to see some love for it on this thread!
A bit unrelated to the reissue but a live version of "Circus Envy" from the Dublin 2007 shows has been posted to the band's YouTube channel:
I had the original LP record back in the 90’s, paid about £10 for it, kicking myself for not keeping it.
Good. I might get this though the deluxe releases of the previous albums haven't really been my cup of tea or drink of choice. Except mainly for the Fables extra disc but am going OT. I like the album tracks a lot on this one, just not the more standard fare singles. Kenneth is ok, but can get monotonous and too predictable, Bang and Blame and Strange Currencies have a few moments but just don't like 'em much but the deep album tracks I quite like and find overall pretty interesting and a few hard-hitting. It's a difficult album for me overall to have a strong and foucsed opinion on. I like most of what are the 'album tracks' and mostly not what are the singles. Simple I guess. I spent many hours and days listening to REM so other than much of the first four albums or so on viny which I still listen to, I tend to feel like with everything else they've given me way beyond what one band can and I feel like I'm good with what I've already heard from them. The only thing about them or concerning them that could truly make me happy would be to see them, or at least 3 of them, in person on stage in concert playing their songs. Ain't holding my breath though! From Monster I like Circus Envy and Crush with Eyeliner best fwiw. Then there are a group of the other album tracks I like maybe a little less but enjoy. King of Comedy, Let Me In, and the track I Don't Sleep, I Dream.
I absolutely love this album. It sounds really simple. But then I try to sing along and realise it’s much more complicated and intricate than I first realised. Have liked it since I first heard it and never get tired of it but with varying attachments to each song. My favourite now is Let Me In. I didn’t get it, or even like it for years. It has a strange quality with no discernible rhythm because of the distortion, but the lyrics kind of worm their way in and rectify the uneasy feeling in a really emotional way. I get the same vibe with Sad Professor and other songs from Up. Still underrated all these years later.
Mike Mills was on a podcast recently called R U Talkin R.E.M and said that the band have little to do with their re-releases, they sign off on them but it's this one guys job to go through all of the material and compile them - I WANT THAT GUYS JOB!!! Got high hopes for a Monster reissue, easily one of my favourite albums of all time, partly due to the fact it hit me when I was 17 and was the first R.E.M album that I was there for from day 1 having come in on Automatic and then gone through their whole back catalogue in the lead up to Monster's release. I still love it, I have but one complaint with the record, I always thought Tounge was completely out of place on the album, good song but just unlike anything else on it. I'm seriously excited for this release and hope we get some cool demos. Would be a real shame if it's just a live album, ideally we get both.
