Ouch. Just my opinion, but had it not been for Around the Sun, this would have ranked as R.E.M.'s worst album for me (I’ve warmed to Up recently; though Reveal might also qualify as worse than this one). Saw them on this tour, though, which was an awesome show. So, what do you say about their jump to a major label?
the album ranked: You Are the Everything, then World Leader Pretend, then Orange Crush and Turn You Inside Out (tie), then everything else but Stand, then Stand
This ranks as my personal Worst REM Album (That I Know). It was *hard *to vote.
Pop Song 89 and Stand seemed to be almost novelty songs, like Shiny, Happy People and Star 69.
Still, I liked some of the harder edge stuff like Orange Crush and Turn You Inside-Out, the latter gettting my vote. The slower songs are completely forgettable and I have no idea why, for the first time, they printed a lyric and it was the stilted World Leader Pretend..
Definitely an overall disappointment at the time.
I think it so encapsulates the early '90s environmentalism. It also reminds me of Northern Exposure, for some reason. Maybe one of Maggie’s deceased boyfriends was a tree-hugger.
I like “You Are the Everything.” Crickets.
I like “I Remember California” – I always heard it as a song from a post-apocalyptic future nostalgic about the present. I’m not sure if that was the intent, but it always kind of creeped me out. In a good way.
I voted for “World Leader Pretend”, but really, it could have been any song on the album except for “Stand” or “Orange Crush”.
And I remember the day this came out. I was a student at Ball State University, and I was messing around the university’s VAX system, and a girl I knew who was a huge R.E.M. fan posted a message along the lines of “I just listened to the new album from my former favorite band in the world, R.E.M., and I hate it!” When pressed for details as to why she loathed it, the only reason she could ultimately give was because it had been released on a major label. That’s right, she hated the band she used to worship simply because they now made more money than they used to make. This (and similar incidents/attitudes), woodstockbirdybird, went a long way toward developing my less-than-flattering opinion of hipsters.
That seems to be more a function of age than anything, to me. Though I admit hipsters are generally in their 20s. But there are (usually young) snobs in every genre of music fandom - some of the most elitist people I’ve ever had conversations about music with were heavy metal fans. I can understand when you’re young and you listen to non-mainstream music that validates your negative feelings about “straight” society that any perceived sell-out can be seen as a betrayal of your ideals. I just know that people grow out of it, so I don’t let it bother me much.
Still, I agree with your acquaintance that this album isn’t in the same league as their IRS albums (or their next four albums, for that matter).
The poll is missing an option for “Ether Ships”!
Come to think of it, it’s missing pretty much every song off the Green album I was thinking of…
Oh, I agree with you about us all being melodramatic and overly emotional (and stupid, likely as not) in our youth, and I’m sure she’s grown out of that and looks back on those days with a mixture of revulsion and good humor now. But as I said, the ludicrousness of her position all those years ago has stayed with me, and was a progenitor of my current rather vehement disdain for flagrant hipsterishness (e.g., being hip for hipness’ sake).
And I agree with your assessment of this album as paling in comparison to what came immediately before and after (though upon its release, I hated Monster with an unbridled, white hot intensity). Still, I think the tunes are largely there, if a touch uninspired and by-the-numbers.
I hated Monster initially, as well (and judging by the used bins at my local independent record store, I’m not the only one). But a couple friends whose judgment I trust told me to revisit it, and, much like Up, I found it a lot stronger than my first impression had led me to believe. “Tongue” especially seemed to be a departure that worked for them. Even some songs I wrote off as utter throwaways on the second side grew on me.
Also: Metal fans can, indeed, be near-unrivaled snobs about their musical genre of choice. Still, I do believe that I, personally, have run across, both in person and in reading the articles (and comments) on websites such as Pitchfork and the A.V. Club, more rampant snobbery and knee jerk disdain for anything containing even a smidgen of mass appeal than I have in countless conversations with various metalheads through the years. And that’s also why I like That Metal Show so much: one week they’ll have Lemmy Kilmister on as a guest, followed the next week by a George Lynch - Don Dokken reunion, followed the week after that by Joey Kramer from Aerosmith.
Plus, metal happens to be much more of a cross-cutural, cross-generational music-for-the-average-Joe than is much of indie rock. Which is pretty well why many critics and, yes, hipsters turn their noses up at it.
Oh, and sorry for the lengthy thread hijack.
Ditto.
It was actually only in the last four or five years that my opinion of Monster did a pretty much complete turnaround.
But more on that in the Monster thread…
I remember driving home from an REM show with my head in my sweetie’s lap <we were in the backseat> and listening to ‘You are the Everything’; it’s a good memory, so that’s my favorite.
I have no idea what the best would be, though.
I voted for You Are the Everything, because it’s one of my favorite songs, period. That being said, the album overall was their weakest to date (Around the Sun is the worst, and, while Up grew on me, too, Reveal hasn’t gotten better with age). The Wrong Child is just awful. Simply awful. And I’m not terribly fond of Hairshirt, either. The rest of it’s allrightish, though I guess I could do without Stand and maybe Get Up. I love Orange Crush, though.
Oh yes, they were very special on the Green tour.
Agree. Very evocative lyrics.
*
Here’s the scene you’re in the back seat laying down
the windows wrap around
to the sound
of the travel and the engine…
*
Was that the first tour where they used a side musician? Peter Holsapple really freed them up to do a lot of things they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to (such as “Perfect Circle”).