This is honestly one of the hardest questions I’ve ever pondered. How can I really choose between Life’s Rich Pageant, Out of Time, and Automatic for the People for the number one spot. There is no doubt, however, that in my personal list Monster goes at the bottom, despite “Bang and Blame.”
I must admit that I don’t own the Green CD, so I can’t rate that one. But I intend to get it some day.
oooh, lists! top three:
- Life’s Rich Pageant
- Chronic Town
- Document
-fh
I’m sorry. 
It’s just the only song that doesn’t do anything for me on AFTP. Maybe I ought to give it another listen.
Top 3:[list=1][li]New Adventures in Hi-Fi[/li][li]Automatic for the People[/li][*]Green[/list=1]
Montfort, gotta agree with Kyla. “Nightswimming” is easily my favorite track on AFTP (what, you prefer “New Orleans Instrumental” or “Monty Got A Raw Deal”? Come on!), and pretty high up on my all-time favorite R.E.M. list. My 3 favorite albums:
- Murmur
- Reckoning
- Lifes Rich Pageant
But then I’m old.
Brilliant.
Sure, I could write a 200 word review, but the above sums it up. It is up their with their best albums ever and is easily the best CD released since Bryan Ferry’s * As time goes by *.
Montfort, I’ll back you up on Nightswimming. I’ve never liked it either. And I really like Automatic.
I’m sold. I’m leaving to go buy it now!!
I’m still not quite sure what I think of Reveal. On the whole it seems to me to have a lot of good songs but as a unit it kind of leaves me a bit unimpressed. Of course there’s not much more a band like REM can do. Every time I listen to Automatic I’m absolutely blown away; quite possibly the greatest rock album ever.
…on a related note…
For whatever reason I found myself watching the REM Behind the Music last night at approximately 1 in the morning and was inspired to go out and buy my second REM album in a week (Dead Letter Office). I’m listening to it right now.
- Lifes Rich Pageant – Only one song on it I don’t dig that much
- Document – Perfect first half, pretty good second half
- Monster – A welcome blast of rock after the “mandolin years” of the previous few albums.
- Out of Time – Years after MTV’s overplaying of “Losing My Religion,” I can once again enjoy the song.
- Green – Yes, I like “Stand.”
- Automatic For The People – Nice and moody, but loses points for making me think of Andy Kaufman, whose appeal I have never understood.
- Reckoning – “Rockville” is the prettiest thing the band has ever done, and since Mike Mills wrote the lyrics, the song ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE!
- Murmur – Even if it is a classic, I still don’t listen to it that much
- Reveal – Could move up as I listen to it a little more.
- Fables of the Reconstruction – Even though it includes the one song I can play on the guitar all the way through (“Driver 8”), still not much of an album as a whole.
- New Adventures in Hi-Fi – But I do like “The Wake-Up Bomb.”
- Up – Bleah. If you guys don’t know how to work those drum machines, ask someone in Depeche Mode for help.
Hey, who has seen the video for “Imitation of Life”? That Michael Stipe is quite the dancer, isn’t he?
It’s taking me a while to get into Reveal. My usual strategy for speeding things up is singing along with the lyrics sheet in front of me.
On the other hand, I liked Up almost instantly. Still one of my favorites. I’m not going to try to put the albums in order, there’d be far too many ties for numbers 1 and 2.
The Red Menace, my pet theory is that you can judge a person’s true REM fanship by their opinion of Dead Letter Office, particularly if you can stomach (or indeed, even sing along to) their drunken version of King of the Road. Whaddyathink?
Well if that’s the case it would seem that I’m in the club of true fanship, as I have for the most part enjoyed the offerings of Dead Letter Office. My favorite part about the “King of the Road” cover is Peter Buck’s comment, “I can barely remember cutting it.”
Something that continually strikes me is how mediocre of musicians the guys in REM are. I would doubt they could do much more intricate or complex music if they wanted to, but it seems that they’ve not only overcome this “deficit” but they’ve turned it to their advantage. Dave Matthews Band may be 100 times the musicians as REM but for me REM wins out every time. Does anyone else agree with me about being surprised by how much they are able to achieve with so little refined talent?
Do you really think they’re that bad?
Well, do bear in mind here that I’m talking solely in terms of TECHNICAL prowess, which I acknowledge is much different from overall musicianship. That’s why I used the term “refined talent”, and I really don’t think they have too much in that area. I mean, come on, Peter Buck once referred to “demolished chords” in an interview (when what he really meant was diminished chords) and not too long ago, perhaps 1998, was talking in Guitar Magazine about just then learning alternate time signatures such as 5/4. It’s my belief that they keep things simple because they can’t do much else.
But do I really think they’re that bad? Not at all, I think they’re great, but I also think that their collective talents amounts to something far greater than what any of them is individually worth.
Demolished chords … heh.
Although Peter Buck is well-known for creating his distinctive jangly style out of the fact that he was truly unschooled when the band started out, I have read that Mike Mills did grow up taking some significant musical training. If anybody in the band could be considered to have some real technical prowess, it would be him.