Is shiny happy people better than how soon is now? The REM thread

61

I agree with that.

Even I’ve Been High from Reveal showed an electronic quality but they were on the way down by then.

It could be said that Monster was their first album at their 9th attempt that dipped below a 9 out of 10 standard.

New Adventures in Hi Fi is one strange album. One of the top 3 R.E.M. songs in E-bow, other crackers like Electrolite, How the West was Won, So Fast So Numb but the remaining 10 odd songs are dirge in my view.

62

Monster is fairly shit(by REM standards) to be honest. Easily their worst and if truth be told it turned me off them for years before I revisited the earlier albums. I picked up the Part truths compilation when it came out in 11 and was blown away once again. Great track listing picked by the band.
Disc 1
“Gardening at Night” – 3:29 (from Chronic Town, 1982)
“Radio Free Europe” – 4:03 (from Murmur, 1983)
“Talk About the Passion” – 3:21 (from Murmur)
“Sitting Still” – 3:17 (from Murmur)
“So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” – 3:15 (from Reckoning, 1984)
“(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” (Edited version) – 4:32 (from Reckoning)
“Driver 8” – 3:23 (from Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985)
“Life and How to Live It” – 4:06 (from Fables of the Reconstruction)
“Begin the Begin” – 3:28 (from Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986)
“Fall on Me” – 2:50 (from Lifes Rich Pageant)
“Finest Worksong” – 3:48 (from Document, 1987)
“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” – 4:05 (from Document)
“The One I Love” – 3:17 (from Document)
“Stand” – 3:12 (from Green, 1988)
“Pop Song 89” – 3:04 (from Green)
“Get Up” – 2:39 (from Green)
“Orange Crush” – 3:52 (from Green)
“Losing My Religion” – 4:28 (from Out of Time, 1991)
“Country Feedback” – 4:09 (from Out of Time)
“Shiny Happy People” – 3:46 (from Out of Time)
“The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” – 4:07 (from Automatic for the People, 1992)
Disc 2
“Everybody Hurts” – 5:17 (from Automatic for the People)
“Man on the Moon” – 5:13 (from Automatic for the People)
“Nightswimming” – 4:16 (from Automatic for the People)
“What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” – 4:00 (from Monster, 1994)
“New Test Leper” – 5:26 (from New Adventures in Hi-Fi, 1996)
“Electrolite” – 4:05 (from New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
“At My Most Beautiful” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 3:35 (from Up, 1998)
“The Great Beyond” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 5:06 (from Man on the Moon, 1999)
“Imitation of Life” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 3:57 (from Reveal, 2001)
“Bad Day” – 4:05 (from In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, 2003)
“Leaving New York” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 4:49 (from Around the Sun, 2004)
“Living Well Is the Best Revenge” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 3:11 (from Accelerate, 2008)
“Supernatural Superserious” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 3:23 (from Accelerate)
“Überlin” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 4:15 (from Collapse into Now, 2011)
“Oh My Heart” (Buck, Mills, Stipe, Scott McCaughey) – 3:21 (from Collapse into Now)
“Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 2:45 (from Collapse into Now)
“A Month of Saturdays” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 1:40 (previously unreleased)
“We All Go Back to Where We Belong” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 3:35 (previously unreleased)
“Hallelujah” (Buck, Mills, Stipe) – 3:42 (previously unreleased)

I still prefer the Smiths though. :confused:

63

Totally reflecting my own views on REM here. Ebow is an all timer and Monster was a let down. I would put it on a par with Out of Time however just about. Out of Time for me has some classics. Feedback, Me in Honey, Half a world away and of course LMR. Its let down badly however by SHP and Radio Song.

When asked my favourite album I say Murmur without hesitation. Laughing, Shaking Through, Pilgrimage and Talk about the passion are all near perfect pop songs.
The highest concentration of excellent songs can be found on Automatic however. Drive is just perfection imo.

1 Like
64

Famous Rem Songs that let them down in my opinion. Or maybe for the overrated thread?

Radio Song
Get Up [A lot of people like this though]
Stand
Shiny Happy People
The One I love
Strange Currencies
Imitation of Life
Orange Crush
Don’t go back to Rockville
I Believe

Seriously Underrated
Disturbance at the Heron House
Swan Swan H
Shaking Through
Superman
World Leader Pretend
Welcome to the Occupation
Begin the Begin
King of Birds

65

Why does it have to be the Smiths or R.E.M. guys? Can’t we like both?

66

Great thread. In terms of REM’s two good songs I think Losing My Religion just edges Shiny Happy People.

5 Likes
67

You forgot everybody hurts mate.

Bad day is a great pop tune. They do pop better than most.

68

Intelligent song.

Lolz

69

The music snobs don’t like it up em – I said that REM were a poor man Smith’s is a throw away comment - queue lads arguing incessantly about the virtues of both and why one out trumps the other because some lad played a didgeridoo on a certain album which showed greater variety… fucking wankers.

4 Likes
70

Night’s swimming.

71

I like the really fast one they always use on the soundtrack of college coming of age comedies.

72

Leeeeenard Bernstein??

73

Is that the one where he sings the lyrics really fast and then says something like “feeling pretty right”?

74

Actually next line is “Its the end of the world”

75

I hate you

76

I like last four songs on the overrated list and wouldn’t be bothered with Superman’.

They also could pull out great cover versions - First We Take Manhattan, Wall of Death, I Walked with a Zombie

77

No, you don’t.

78

Or dislike both. Not that I do but still…

79

@ChocolateMice on the ball here. Listening to REM would put years on you.

3 Likes
80

Chronic Town and the first five full lengths are all classics and can be listened to as complete works, as all great albums can be. The IRS years is by far the best compilation, as all later ones others have at least some “utter garbage”. There were obviously two significant events in the band’s history, signing with a major label which resulted in a series of spotty records which mixed great, decent and dreadful, and the departure of Bill Berry, who was obviously much more than just the drummer. New Adventures, the last album when he was with them, is imo their last decent effort, and everything afterwards, save a few good songs, is the sound of a band in terminal decline who should have given up long before Around the Sun in 2004, let alone the utter scutter of Collapse into Now.

Monster is a half decent album, while missing the mark it has a few decent tracks. Compared to the best from the grunge era however it is cringe.

3 Likes