REM - Green: Why you should never listen to sell out bias.

I once loved Pop Song 89 but once I saw that video, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

 

Yeah my daughter sung it at school, so it’s ok by me.

 

The irony is, right after that they released New Adventures In Hi-Fi, which probably was their least commercial sounding album in, like, a decade.

 

Listening to Green right now...

It’s just a real solid album. Prefer it over OOT and maybe even Document.

 

It’s strange to me that someone would consider their records after signing that deal “safe.” Especially Up! If they wanted to play it safe they would’ve written tons of mandolin ballads and upbeat pop songs. They could’ve easily retreated into making sequels to their biggest hits over and over. They never did that.

 

On the whole I agree, but they definitely had songs that were heavily reminiscent of earlier stuff. "Daysleeper" definitely had that Automatic vibe. I never liked "Imitation Of Life" because it sounds like a rewrite of "Driver 8." And re-recording "Bad Day" was a pretty obvious attempt at recapturing the "It's End Of the World As We Know It" appeal (yes, I know it was the original version).

 

Sorry, but I think the "Scott Litt Era" of REM is the best.

Get over it, REMsnobs.

 

Buck even acknowledged he accidentally stole from himself for “imitation” in the liner notes to In Time

 

As noted by @twicks , “Daysleeper” is very much in their comfort zone. “Falls To Climb” began life as a mandolin ballad that sounds exactly like an outtake from Green or Out of Time. That mandolin demo isn’t on YouTube, or I would link to it, but it does circulate among collectors. A lot of what is “different” about Up is in the arrangements more so than in the songwriting.

 

If Document showed one thing it’s that it wasn’t WB making sure they made it big.
They already were heading that way, no matter how you slice it.

 

Thinking about it, Automatic was pretty unique, especially at that particular time.
A semi-acoustic album in the midst of the Grunge explosion that doesn’t directly recall any other album and it became BIG!

 

The R.E.M. snobs do kind of bother me.

I mean, I get that fans are a bit turned off when a formerly "cool" band goes mainstream. But there are two ways to do that: by changing your style drastically to suit the larger market (i.e., "selling out"), or by just slowly and gradually building up a large audience organically. R.E.M. were clearly a case of the latter.

If you played Green and Out of Time to someone from another galaxy after they were familiar with Lifes Rich Pageant and Document, there's no way the alien person would guess the artist had signed a big deal with a major label or changed its style to a more commercial one.

I think a lot of these R.E.M. IRS-nerds maybe got laid for the first (only?) time because a girl thought they were cool for liking an indie-band.

 

Yes and it pretty much finished them commercially. I am a fan of it though.

 

never put much thought into it...liked the band, enjoyed their albums until they did no more. ; )

 

I like the Scott Litt period a lot -- all five albums -- but I prefer the IRS, pre-Litt period most; I don't think I'm a "snob" for that, I just respond even more to those first four plus Chronic Town. I don't even care about the label or whether they sold out, or whatever.

 

If I could only keep one REM album it would be Green. My first REM album and sentimental favourite. Yes they’ve made better albums but I think Green is the best showcase of the complete REM personality - serious, arty, silly, poppy, angry, melancholic, political, whimsical....

 

The thing with REM is that the great majority of their albums is distinctive enough to warrant repeated listens, the one exception being Around The Sun which feels like a drag.

 

There is one little gem on Around The Sun though - Electron Blue.

 

I don't get why its snobby for one to like what they like. I prefer early REM - not because they were on IRS or their fanbase was small - but because I think those early records sound better.

 

'Green' is their best album hands down

 

Never mind the fact that It’s The End Of The World... is possibly their most well-known song by now, more so than Losing My Religion, Everybody Hurts or Man On The Moon.

 

Tied with Fables..., Up and Reveal I would say yes.

 

You Are The Everything, World Leader Pretend, and Untitled are 3 of my fav REM songs and I’ve been with them since 1982. Green is an excellent album.

 

I totally get the "it sounded like where we lived"
I lived in GA in the early 90's and I remember once going down some rural road where the trees just covered the road and you could barely see the sky, and the sunlight was pricking through the leaves in little needles of light, and remember thinking that the way the sunlight peaked through the trees sounded in my mind like the jangle of REM.

 

EXACTLY. Yeah, it's very evocative music for me. And I guess you, too!