"Bittersweet Me" and "Undertow" are great songs.

Is there any truth to the band reuniting for an abreviated tour?
I can't be teased like this.

If you want to convince yourself that REM could make music which could be readily classified as "college bound crap", listen to "Shaking Through" off Murmur. It should do the job.

It's as vapid and banal a song as they ever produced.

They were my favourite band in the world in 1989 / 1990.

I honestly don't know how to vote;my head says crap, my heart says not.

REM for me are a band that should have broken up a long long time ago. They have diluted themselves now to the point they are going to go down in history as being about as relevant as Sting.

I like that they promoted Pylon a great deal. Pylon was a great great band.

They had good songs and some near perfect albums up until Document. The rest of the discography is pretty much crap with one or two decent songs thrown in.

big_dave wrote:
R.E.M. are the only band in history where each record is worse than the previous. The past two albums are fucking hideous by anyone's standards.

I am not a huge fan, but I think Document is tons better than the two records that came before it. There's not a song as urgent, angular and as dark as "Oddfellows Local 151" on the Fables or Life's Rich Pageant.

I also don't think that Reckoning is arguably that much suckier than Murmur. I enjoy listening to either album pretty much equally. Murmur has clunkers- it is far from perfect. The electro-acoustic numbers hurt me. Just because Reckoning came after Murmur doesn't make those clunkers on Murmur any better. Don't Go Back to Rockville is a dumb song on Reckoning. I hate the fake country mamby piano songs the most.

Fables is quite possibly the most dour of the early REMs. Not a great album by a long shot.

Chronic Town is perfect. Document is good. Reckoning and Murmur are good. Life's Rich Pageant is merely OK.

Maybe the best thing about REM and 1985 is that REM chose the Minutemen to open for them on a US tour.

i think ive listened to " i believe" about thirty times tonight. i really love that fucking song. especially when im sick, which i currently am.

I loved their first Hibtone single, and they were the underground critics darling in 1981 (NY Rocker, Sweet Potato).

They have taken a downward spiral since then. As the kids say "Jes' Sayin'".

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

That's right. Now face west, motherfucker.

For some reason when I first saw this it made me laugh like a drain for about five minutes. I have since heard "Stand" and I suspect

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:
That's right. Now face west, motherfucker.

will forever be my response to it.

how can anyone call crap to the band that recorder MURMUR and defined alt rock in the early early eighties

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote: Now face west, motherfucker.

Happy 47th To Michael Stipe tomorrow

GoldenGoneDays wrote:how can anyone call crap to the band that recorder MURMUR and defined alt rock in the early early eighties

Like this: crap.

Any questions?

Both their 'best of' compilations are enough to know about this band.
One thing I hate about REM is seeing Michael Stipe & his fucking face !