I just thought the songs sucked.
I just thought the songs sucked.
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
Life's Rich Pageant was the pinnacle. I remember when the first - the 4 song EP Chronic Town came out and it was a breath of fresh air. Music was coming back after disco and the rest of that late '70s/early '80s crap.
Also really liked the unplugged on MTV - wish they'd release that.
I've always said that "Life's Rich Pageant" was the best album of the 1980s. "Document" was very nearly as good. After I bought those I started buying their "back catalogue". Then "Green" came out and it had some weak songs on it although the pop hits were good. They lost me with their next album, though. I don't even remember the name of it I started getting heavily into classical music in the 90s and forgot about R.E.M.
It had to be Collapse Into Now. That was something of a summary of their career in a way. There are a couple fun rockers in the style of the IRS years, a sweet acoustic groove or two that could have come right out of Out of Time, some kicking arena-rocky material that might have fit with New Adventures or Accelerate, etc.... and it's all great stuff. Maybe in retrospect the goodbye feeling should have been obvious, but I didn't get it at the time. I was just happy they'd done their best work in years--Accelerate made a great comeback, but Collapse was a step beyond it, more eclectic and happy. It's still one of my favs of the whole catalogue.
Up is an oddity on the other hand. It's the most dark/subdued thing they've done. I think of it as a precursor to Radiohead's Kid A in a way... it's not exactly depressing, but based around weird tones and synth effects more than guitar rock. They were basically experimenting and figuring out a different direction after losing Bill. The lyrics are also some of the most personal and thoughtful Michael ever did (I believe it was also the first album to have them printed in the booklet, which was a sign of that shift as much as the words themselves). There's an occasional ray of hope in the dimness, but it probably deserves its black-sheep reputation. Only a couple songs are easy/pleasant for the casual listener. It's the kind of album you have to meet halfway, if that makes sense. (All that said, I for one love Up as much as any of the others, even if it probably gets spun less frequently.)
Interesting. I've always defended Around the Sun a little more than most (I insist there's two-thirds of a good album lurking in there), and even that puts me in a small minority. Hardly anyone else seems to consider it anything but a waste. I dunno... there are probably just too many draggy slow songs and too few lively moments. And it's not even the slow pace that's a problem (I love Automatic to death), it's that they're a little *too* samey and a little *too* uninspired and there's too little that's even mid-tempo to complement it.
Meanwhile I've completely loved Accelerate from day one. Short and lean, no-frills rocking out, and not a weak moment to be heard.
But how many any-old-garage-bands would have come up with "You" or "Let Me In" alongside the grungy stuff, let alone "I Don't Sleep, I Dream"? Yeah, it's not their best album, but it was just the change they wanted/needed to make at the time. It let them sound souped-up and grungy for a while while still avoiding the usual angsty BS and sounding like themselves. Granted, I don't know how I would have evaluted it at different times, but for a high-schooler in '94 who loved things loud and fuzzy but was long since sick of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, it hit those sweet spots perfectly.
Accelerate is the best recent one. It really did seem to be the next album after Green, if they hadn't got sidetracked into acoustic/mandolin mid-tempo maudlin-land.
Pre Green they were sort of the American version of the Smiths (IMO)...I liked the country tinge they had....Once they became the 8 million dollar band all the charm left.
But see, private people don't "come out" on MTV in front of a worldwide audience. People like Stipe are "private" when it's convenient for them.
Personally I couldn't care less if he wants to shout that he's gay from the top of the Empire State Building, but anybody, gay, straight or whatever they are, that feels the need to discuss their sex life on worldwide television, kind of forfeits their right to play the "I'm a private person" card.
High Vibration Go On - R.I.P. Chris Squire
I was a big fan of theirs up until "Document" - after that, they lost me, but their first five albums, especially the "Chronic Town" EP, "Murmer", "Reckoning", and "Fables of The Reconstruction" were magical ("Dead Letter Office" is also a good listen). There was a sense of sublime mysticism on every album. The songs were very melodic and yet they were also dark and mysterious. But the best thing about the first few albums was their pre-fame innocence and that sense of rural America on every one of those early albums ( some country and western elements all throughout those albums that made them very Byrds-like at times)
plus, as a bonus for myself, i LOVED Mike Mills bass parts: Very melodic sing-songy types of lines.....plus he was a very good vocalist that added some excellent harmonies
.....and, although I prefer lyrics I can actually hear, Michael Stipe's mumbling approach actually worked with their style, and the band somehow came up with excellent three-part harmonies against Stipe's approach.
Yes, but in an interview he said that he was originally going for a Paul Mcartney approach when they started -- he wanted to break away from the kick/bass lock and be able to weave melodic basslines into the songs (He had made some side money growing up playing guitar and bass in country bands in Georgia and Im guessing that, as a bass player, he had done all the Root/5th he could take for awhile -LOL). The best thing was that he just wasn't writing fills: he wrote bass figures into the songs, and thats what made them sound so good (IMO)
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