Automatic for the People was a great album.

one of my favourite bands. until bill berry left that is.
so, for historical purposes i will rank! the REM catalogue that i have heard.

automatic for the people
document
life's rich pageant
reckoning
murmur
out of time
chronic town
monster
green

the rest all sounds a bit over-produced to me.

A Yahoo! image search using the term "Michael Stipe" produces this photograph as the thirteenth-ranked result.

That's right. Now face west, motherfucker.

ive only read about 1/4 of the posts on this thread, but...

...im failing to see how anyone who has a faint interest in american pop music could think that rem's early albums are crap.

im trying to push aside my personal nostalgia and hear the songs for what they are...

...these are great fucking songs. and great fucking albums...

...many of which drove me and my friends [for better or worse] to learn how to play guitar and sing at the same time.

these are great songs....im left confused by many of your comments....

cervixFORaHEart wrote:these are great songs

Yeah, I always like them when I hear them. And then I forget about them, and I forget about the band altogether.

This is the thing: When I think "Man on the Moon", I think NOT CRAP. When I think "R.E.M." I think CRAP.

How do I resolve this? I don't.

Oh, and I really hate Rickenbacker guitars and Peter Buck is a big reason for that.

CRAP

"Yeah, I always like them when I hear them. And then I forget about them, and I forget about the band altogether. "

this thought process of yours might possibly continue to make you ignorant in many other facets of your life...

hey are you cervix on the hipinion boards too?

i still haven't heard anything after 'monster', i just can't bring myself to spend time with such glossy albums. still NOT CRAP obviously.

cervixFORaHEart wrote:this thought process of yours might possibly continue to make you ignorant in many other facets of your life...

It's not so much a matter of "thought process". Think more along the lines of not giving a fuck.

But thanks for the concern.

tommydski wrote:i still haven't heard anything after 'monster', i just can't bring myself to spend time with such glossy albums. still NOT CRAP obviously.

Describing R.E.M.'s post-Monster releases as "glossy" isn't entirely correct.

For instance, R.E.M. recorded New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996) during various soundchecks and live shows. I believe that they recorded the song "Zither" in a bathroom, which, if nothing else, should reinforce the opinions of The Haters (e.g., "Hey, R.E.M., she literally is toilet music!").

Here's what someone else had to say:

AllMusic.com wrote:Recorded during and immediately following R.E.M.'s disaster-prone Monster tour, New Adventures in Hi-Fi feels like it was recorded on the road. Not only are all of Michael Stipe's lyrics on the album about moving or travel, the sound is ragged and varied, pieced together from tapes recorded at shows, [soundchecks], and studios, giving it a loose, careening charm. New Adventures has the same spirit of much of R.E.M.'s IRS records.

There is a simple, beautiful and ragged song on this record called "Be Mine" that might be worth your time.

Who knows?

There is a simple, beautiful and ragged song on this record called "Be Mine" that might be worth your time.

This song is my favorite REM song. Which is funny since it's not really anything special but I guess coming from a band that has done so much bombast it becomes even more charming to me. Plus before I heard it I wrote the exact same guitar riff. I was screwing around and started playing a riff and my friend said "that's an REM song" and he played the record for me and it was, I was even playing it in the same key. I swear I had never heard it before. That went a long way towards me liking that song too.