My iPod just gave me Country Feedback from "Out Of Time".

I never realized how absolutely great this song is. I always thought it was good, but never this great.

It completely saves this record from being the worst example of painful Billboard aspirations.

It is a sad, lonely song with real emotion. It's even sadder because it's surrounded by some of the worst songs the band ever wrote. And it's even sadder still because it's the only song on that album that doesn't sound like there were weeks of overdubs and retakes going into it.

It's as if the band took all their experience as a band from the 1980's and poured it into one final swansong before they began to suck on the corporate knobend. It's a fucking great song.

If REM had broken up after Green many people would look at them very differently.
I don't think they made a bad record up to that point. After that, they did almost nothing but make bad records.
I just pretend they broke before "shiny happy people" came out.

stewie wrote:It completely saves this record from being the worst example of painful Billboard aspirations.

The surefire approach to scoring a top o' the pops hit is to:

1. release a single that features the mandolin as its lead instrument -- bonus points if the song has no clearly defined chorus ("Losing My Religion");
2. have your squirrelly bass player sing two songs ("Texarkana", "Near Wild Heaven");
3. include KRS-One on a song ("Radio Song");
4. feature three downcast dirges with no drums ("Low", "Half A World Away" and "Country Feedback");
5. include a baroque instrumental ("Endgame"); and
6. include a song with speaksing verses and no words in the chorus ("Belong").

This is the roadmap for a Big Pop Album? Come on, stewie!

Bag on "Shiny Happy People" (or even "Radio Song") all you want, but don't judge this record by these dumb missteps. "Out Of Time" is a very good record.

And to respond to the "The Kid", other post-"Green" records such as "Reveal", "Up" and "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" are also very good records. "Automatic For The People" is a classic. Oh how I love that record!

But they followed that record with "Monster", which is flaccid mediocrity.

And their new album is a total dog except for two spectacular songs.

And note that "Green" itself is not so hot.

I know. I love R.E.M. Blah blah blah. But I'm making a different point here, which is that I find this early R.E.M./late R.E.M. distinction to be totally meaningless. I just don't get where this argument comes from, and it frankly sounds received/parroted. I mean, I've listened to each of these records an innumerable amount of times, and I cannot identify a specific period at which R.E.M. was at a relative creative peak or downturn. Their catalog is all over the calendar in terms of when their best records were released. I find this very sexy.

But stewie, I will say that "Country Feedback" might be my favorite R.E.M. song. And while I do not normally recommend videos, you should see the fucked up super-8 clip for "Country Feedback". It's great.

Okay! Salut, stewie! Salut, The Kid!

Salut, beautiful rock band R.E.M.!

Salut, friends who are to read my R.E.M. posts so much!

Gonna' have to say not crap.

" i remember california" off a' green is still a favorite.

although, i wish peter buck would lay off that d-major thing.
i swear to christ he uses that in most of their songs.
they also do a cover of "dark globe" by robyn hitchcock.(good?)
another knock against them as they flayed that b-side to
the consumer on a coupla' singles.
i dont know what the hell that guys lyrics are about.
athens seems like a nice oasis in the middle of deliverance.

Bradley, reading your REM fandom made me pull out Murmur again.

I will continue to like it, and it still reminds me of certain psychedelic music I hold dear (Southwest FOB, The Nightcrawlers, 13th Floor Elevators).

I had more fun reading your posts, though.

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:And to respond to the "The Kid", other post-"Green" records such as "Reveal", "Up" and "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" are also very good records. "Automatic For The People" is a classic. Oh how I love that record!

But they followed that record with "Monster", which is flaccid mediocrity.

And their new album is a total dog except for two spectacular songs.

And note that "Green" itself is not so hot.

I know. I love R.E.M. Blah blah blah. But I'm making a different point here, which is that I find this early R.E.M./late R.E.M. distinction to be totally meaningless. I just don't get where this argument comes from, and it frankly sounds received/parroted. I mean, I've listened to each of these records an innumerable amount of times, and I cannot identify a specific period at which R.E.M. was at a relative creative peak or downturn.

I'll admit I can't speak with the authority of a person who has listened to all of the post-Green records "an innumerable amount of times."
This is because I gave up on the band after they put out three straight records that I didn't like: Out of Time, Automatic, and Monster.
I liked a couple songs off of both OOT and Automatic. I liked nothing off of Monster. I sold each of those records, knowing I would never choose to listen to those over any of the previous albums.
REM was a gateway band for me. Before my older sister turned me on to them, I was into metal. And not good metal, either. After REM, I was into, for lack of a better word, good music. So maybe I create a distinction between the era when their albums still did something for me, and the era when they stopped doing anything for me.
I still enjoy Green. I think it's a good record.
And I don't find it necessary to parrot other people's arguments, regarding rock bands or anything else.

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:
But I'm making a different point here, which is that I find this early R.E.M./late R.E.M. distinction to be totally meaningless. I just don't get where this argument comes from, and it frankly sounds received/parroted.

And their new album is a total dog except for two spectacular songs.

REM's never been 'cool' and I think this has helped them in their very long and varied career. Even when Out of Time was out, Nirvana was like the cool band, or the band that others wanted to emulate. I was about to say the very same thing about that record, but I knew zealous BRW was hot on stewie's tracks. Salut!

Around the Sun, save for a few songs, is one of the better things they've done since Mr. Berry left. I still maintain most of Bill's power came from that unwieldy unibrow.

mattw wrote:REM's never been 'cool' and I think this has helped them in their very long and varied career.

I disagree. Maybe you're too young to remember when "college rock" was a phrase that people bandied about in sincerity.
I remember that pre-huge, pre-"shiny happy people" REM was somewhat "cool." As an adolescent, my punk rocker friends didn't ridicule me for liking REM. They grudgingly respected it. And when you're 13, nobody is cooler than the kids who are into Minor Threat and Circle Jerks.
This was 15-16 years ago. They've just been uncool for a really long time. But there was a time when they weren't.

tmidgett wrote:i can't think of a single band
who was making music while i was in high school
who is still making music
about whom i was truly crazy
about whom i am still truly crazy as a whole

i still appreciate and sometimes still love large swatches of the oeuvres of these groups, but none of these bands or my feelings about them cohered completely over time

the contemporary part is important--i've always loved the velvets and the stones for example. the stones don't really count as i was listening to old records.

wait...neil young. neil young makes it. but that seems different somehow.

Neil Young counts. As do Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

And Prince almost makes it, but not quite.

The Kid wrote:As an adolescent, my punk rocker friends didn't ridicule me for liking REM. They grudgingly respected it. And when you're 13, nobody is cooler than the kids who are into Minor Threat and Circle Jerks.

We ran in wildly different circles, my friend. Because everyone I knew 15-16 years ago liked Minor Threat and the Circle Jerks, and our feelings towards those liking REM cannot best be described as "grudging respect." Maybe if you'd been into Big Country, we'd have cut you a little slack.

Guitars that sound like bagpipes--there's something to grudgingly respect!