Entertainment For Lively Minds
New r.e.m. track
Posted by resident on 16 December 2010 - 4:12pm.
New track from up and coming album up for grabs from their web site.Not sure what i think of it,but not sure what i think of them anymore.Anyway, it's something for nowt.See what you think.
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Ace.
Always interested no matter what the outcome...
Thanks.
It's strange
They were my favourite band in the early nineties, I would be on tenderhooks for months waiting for new material. Now, I can't even summon up the energy to click and hear the track. I expect it will be ok, but they've just lost it completely haven't they ? The cupboard is bare.
They were my favourite band of the eighties,
Having been introduced to them relatively late in the day (Life's Rich Pageant). It seemed that they were the band that I had been waiting for all my life, and each subsequent album had me howling at the moon like a slack-jawed fool.
I even blagged my way into their only English show in 1987 when they were flogging Document, having accosted one of their American road crew in the pub toilet across the road from the Hammersmith Odeon. A fiver, it cost me.
They were astonishing. And, they were the only band I have ever seen to come back on for an encore afer the house lights had come up. Some twenty minutes or so later they ambled on, like they owned the place, and played an absolutely screaming Radio Free Europe.
They were never same after Bill Berry left. I've seen DVDs of their more recent live shows and they've been little more than over-blown, preening nonsense.
I was also there...
...but paid £25 for a ticket that had a face value of (I think) £6. Several days pay back then, but a bargain all the same.
I don't listen to REM much these days, and nothing later than Green. But I think the problem is me, not them. They provided the soundtrack to an important part of my life. And in some respects I think music is as much about the time and place as anything else.
Not sure if I will investigate that new track. But they are so far in credit with me that I'd probably forgive them even if they did a duet with James Blunt.
'...in credit...'
That's a good way of putting it. That's how I feel about them.
I had a good friend, a fellow REM fan, who all but disowned them after Berry left. Just never listened to them again. I never viewed him in the same light after this. He just adored them, as I did and then dropped them forever.
On REM's behalf, I cannot forgive him.
Originally Posted On Fed Up thread
The new album will undoubtedly be hailed as "a return to form", "their best album since their last best album", and was probably recorded organically.
The first track on the album is here, scroll about halfway down the page -
http://stereogum.com/602231/r-e-m-discoverer/mp3s/
Sounds terrible to me.
They said they'd split up
if one member left; they didn't. They said they'd split up after ten albums; they didn't. If they'd kept their word and joined Bill Berry on the golf course they'd now be remembered as one of THE great groups.
hmm, not impressed
and disappointed, since I thought Accelerate was their best record in a while.
Remember them this way:
EDIT: or don't. Embedding disabled by request, my arse
Christ
on a bike.
I'm off to listen to everything they did between Murmur and Monster.
Please stop now
It's pretty poor isn't it.I wonder if i can send it back?
Pass
I'll wait for The Bachelors' cover version.
I thought what I downloaded was The Batchelors' cover version.
I've stuck by R.E.M. right up to now but I think this will be the point at which my loyalty snaps and ordinary R.E.M. is no longer good enough. Turgid.
Discoverer
I have played it a few times now; I like it more and more. Great sound to it, especially the beginning.
To make it easier for the casual observer:
REM By Numbers.
It's alright. I don't think I could damn it with faint praise in any other way than to say 'it's alright'. It's not offensive in the way that illness, or getting a bollocking at work, or an international outrage, is. It really is, you know, up there with lots of other things that fall into the 'it's alright' category.
Or, I could say, 'why bother', and go and listen to Cuyahoga, or Swan Swan H, or Can't Get There From Here, or I Believe, or something, rather than this heap of 'it's alright'-ness.
God bless you, itfc.
Just had to pop Cuyahoga on, thanks to that post. What a song. What a band they were. Emphasis, sadly, on "were".
They should have stopped after this
They'll never better it
Much as I love...
..."So. Central Rain", I think they've bettered it plenty of times. Said it before, don't mind saying it again: up to and including "Up" their run of great albums was uninterrupted. They had a run of 18 years of producing really, really good records, some of which are up there with the best ever, by anyone.
What a Song, Indeed.
What an album. A very dear and old friend, Marc Issue (late of Switch, tv pop prog of the early 80s, Channel 4), played me the review tape he had been given as we were driving back from a day's mushroom picking in Kent.
We got to the end of it having listened in silence. I asked if I could hear it again.
The first of many, many listens.
I am simply...
...not going to press play. I will not make any effort, however small, to hear this song. If it comes on the radio, I probably won't turn it off, but I'm not going to exercise so much as my clicking finger just to be bored. Utter mediocrity from one of the finest bands ever to switch on an amp is pretty hard to take, and I am certain that this will fit that description.
Give it a go Bob
Honestly, I am liking it more and more. Document-era style.
Post-Monster hasn't been half bad (I am so glad Up is getting mentions). Just consider all the ex-REM fans who gave up after Monster and have missed out on New Test Leper, A Sad Professor, Be Mine, Falls to Climb, Beat a Drum, Final Straw etc...
In fact a 'REM's Greatest Songs Since They Became Shit' record would be better than almost every album of the past decade.
Reminded
I am reminded of a line I like in the Simpsons. Lisa is listening in a store to a Kevin Costner DVD commentary on one of his later works and then turns out to be doing it in person and apologises to Lisa for it:
'I'm sorry. I am really sorry. Ugh, ah, I don't know what I was
thinking, but "Field of Dreams" was good, wasn't it? Made us all
believe again.'
Substitute Field of Dreams for the R.E.M album of your choosing.
Irony:
In the opening minutes of this Making Of UP docu from 1999
(UP was their last great album i think) Peter Buck had this to say:
"I just never in my wildest dreams thought that someone in the band would quit while we're doing great work. My picture that i had of us breaking up is that we'd do a couple of really bad records...and then we'd go to a Chinese restaurant and get drinks with umbrellas in them and say 'you know guys it's been a really long haul but we just don't have it anymore', you know, and have a good toast and go home"
"Hello? Is that Athens Golden Palace?"
"Table for three, please."
i actually quite like the new song
it's no Welcome To The Occupation like but you can't have it all.
Fair doos
I'd love it if the rest of the album turned my opinion round but I'm not holding my breath.
On another thread somewhere
A while back there was a discussion about whether it's ever possible to ruin a legacy. They could have quit after Automatic for the People and left a perfect body of work. But then again the crap they've released post-Up doesn't affect the quality or their best work, does it? What harm can they do by carrying on? Genuinely not sure where I stand on this.
Up
I would agree that Up was the last great album but the funny thing is that when Reveal came out I remember the ad with Paul Gambercini said something along the lines of 'it's time to fall in love with REM again' because Warners were trying to push them back to Automatic era sales figures (to recoup the HUGE outlay). There was no need to actually do that at the time and in retrospect it was the patchy Reveal that was the start of the decline.
Of course since then every album has had to be pushed along similar 'return to form' lines.
It's Disappointing
Shame to see em like this they should have split when Bill Berry Left
Nope.
They should've split 2 years after Bill Berry left. We need "Up" and "The Great Beyond".
Did anyone
actually listen to Accelerate? I like it a lot, far far better than Reveal or Around The Sun. The only drawback for me is that it sometimes to be consciously aping the glory days, but I can live with that
Live in Dublin
Did anyone get that - I raved about it elsewhere a while ago. I really thought I was done with REM even though once upon a time they were the everything. (Same as most posters here)
Anyway the live in Dublin has plenty of the Accelerate tracks on it due to when it was released but otherwise it has dozens of gems - right back to Gardening at Night, very few singles etc. They're having fun and you'd swear it was Berry era if you didn't know. Highly recommended.
Accelerate / REMix
Reveal and Around The Sun are their only patchy albums for me, Accelerate is excellent. A two album dip then, but two albums that still contain excellent songs such as 'Imitation Of Life', 'I Wanted To Be Wrong' and 'The Ascent Of Man'. I saw them touring Accelerate, at Lancashire Cricket Ground, fantastic gig and their choices from various periods all stood up. Agree on the Dublin double cd too, spot on.
The new song, I like it, it makes me want to hear more.
The REMix album is worth getting by the way (it's a remix of Reveal which they gave away as a free download). The Jamie Candiloro take on I'll Take The Rain is the highlight.
http://www.remhq.com/extras.php