REM's greatest hits

Quite simply my favourite REM song - period .

NAIH is a bit of a mixed bag but there are some great tracks on there and worthy of investigation. I think you'd be able to pick it up pretty cheap these days. I managed to bag a copy in Pisa for £4 whilst on holiday.

 

New Adventures is my favourite REM album tied with Monster (talk about unfashionable!) and Murmur (not so unfashionable, that one ). Monster and New Adventures are both terribly, painfully underrated, and both are absolute class - you just have to take a bit of time to get to know them (I disliked Monster for about 4 years before I finally saw the light!)

New Adventures is full of great tracks. Leave was my favourite for a long time, then I discovered Be Mine. Now my favourite is E-Bow the Letter. Bittersweet Me, So Fast So Numb, New Test Leper, How The West Was Won, Undertow, bloody hell they're all great!

Now I challenge you to give Monster another chance and see if you get to like it.

Dunc

 

Hey Dunc,

Agree about NAIH. Just rediscovering my REM 'stack', after it having suffered quite a few years in the shadows. The last few albums i didn't spend much time with, but acquired them mainly just through habit.

The thing i remember most about 'Monster' is that it had great smelling CD liner notes, and got me hooked on tobacco.

I have REM in the blood, love or hate them. You need somewhere to hang your coat as a teenager, and for me, REM were it, for reasons i can't remember. But coming back to NAIH the last few days, i have actually found it rather good. Will have to give the rest of the stash a good dusting off, maybe even promote them up a shelf; they're perilously close to the skirting board at present.

 

Never really took to REM in my younger days. Most of my mates were raving about them circa OOT and AFTP but I just couldn't get beyond the banality of it all. Nowadays they hardly listen to them but I have about 6 albums - go figure .

mOnster ain't bad IMO and it's a great CD for doing the cleaning to on a Sunday morning. Some nice singles on there.

Any opinions on 'Reveal' ?
This one really seemed to split REM fans but I have to say I loved it from the moment I bought it.

 

I honestly can't remember it, nor 'UP'. It was one of the later albums i just purchased through habit for completeness. I'll dig that one out tonight now.

I have about 30+ CD's, and somewhere well hidden are videos, press cuttings, promos etc etc... :shame:

Anybody else ever learnt the words to 'It's the end of the world...'

...this is a slippery slope.

 

Didn't think too much of Reveal when it came out - couple good songs but didn't really take to it. But seeing how long it took me to take to Monster I'm not making any final statements about it just yet.

Dunc

 

I *hate* Reveal. Bought into the hype - played it twice. Too embarrassed to take it back! I've got all their mainstream albums from Document onwards, but am after the earlier ones.

Monster - yeah - too damn right; a great album; oh, just 'cos it doesn't sound like OOT or AFTP it must be crap right? Wrong. "Bang and blame" and "Crush with eyeliner" are absolute class, and the whole album's a whole lot of fun.

"Sweetness follows" is my favourite track on AFTP after "Monty got a raw deal"; mind you, I like Morrissey and Leonard Cohen and so on so I go for the dark lyrics over whiney crappy pappy people ones any day of the week!

 

Would agree with that.

I've probably only played Reveal a handful of times too, and not for a while. I don't think it was a bad album, just didn't really grab me. Will have to give it another spin now......

 

They can play on it - that's for sure. It just meandered on for too long and I just couldn't get into it. A bit like the second QOTSA album - 70-odd minutes - gets a bit stale after the first 40. Rock albums should never be longer than 50 minutes unless they're REALLY good