How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us: An REM Thread

[surfndestroy]

REM is probably the best American rock band of all time. I think we just need to go ahead and realize this

I've yet to see mention of Van Halen, Metallica or Guns n Roses.

Van Halen had a pretty long run at being both hugely influential and a long run of platinum albums. Same could be said for Metallica. And for a couple of years GnR ruled the world.

Aerosmith has been mentioned but man, those first five albums pretty much were the template for the next 30 years of American hard rock. Then to still have the same five band members some 40+ years later.

[stip]

those are all influential bands. REM has an untouchable streak of ten nearly flawless albums and being great for 30 years.

[surfndestroy]

those are all influential bands. REM has an untouchable streak of ten nearly flawless albums and being great for 30 years.

Great career but were they ever the number one band at any one time?

[doug rr]

love me some early VH but I'm on team Stip here

although I'd say top 5

[stip]

those are all influential bands. REM has an untouchable streak of ten nearly flawless albums and being great for 30 years.

Great career but were they ever the number one band at any one time?

they were a pretty massive hit factory from 1991-1995

[Kevin Davis]

A lot of terrible, completely inconsequential bands were "number one" for a fleeting instant. Not sure if that's particularly critical criteria.

[Birds in Hell]

OH GOD WHO CARES

*slams door on way out*

[surfndestroy]

love me some early VH but I'm on team Stip here

although I'd say top 5

It all comes down to tastes and what you'll define as artistic merit but Van Halen has over 95 million sales worldwide, 56 million in the US alone. One of five bands to have multiple 10 million+ selling albums in the US. Ten straight multi-platinum albums. In Edward Van Halen, they had who is probably the most influential American guitarist since Jimi Hendrix. For all his faults, David Lee Roth redefined what it meets to be the frontman of a hard rock/metal band.

R.E.M. does have 85 million sales worldwide, six platinum albums (four of those multi-platinum) and no album anywhere close to selling 10 million.

I can definitely see from an artistic merit point of view that R.E.M. is the best band but Van Halen has a lot going for them.

My tastes go with Aerosmith just for their first five albums as the best run of rock albums by an American band. Worldwide sales topping 150 million, nine multi-platinum albums, and over 65 million sales in the US. Still popular and touring 40 years into their career with the original five members.

[surfndestroy]

those are all influential bands. REM has an untouchable streak of ten nearly flawless albums and being great for 30 years.

Great career but were they ever the number one band at any one time?

they were a pretty massive hit factory from 1991-1995

Van Halen has had 15 top 40 singles, including a number 1. R.E.M. had a total of 9 top 40. Aerosmith has 20 top 40 singles, including a number 1. Just from these three bands, R.E.M. was the least popular and I think quite easily argued the least influential. I'm still open to R.E.M. but you have to make a case for them.

[stip]

those are all influential bands. REM has an untouchable streak of ten nearly flawless albums and being great for 30 years.

Great career but were they ever the number one band at any one time?

they were a pretty massive hit factory from 1991-1995

Van Halen has had 15 top 40 singles, including a number 1. R.E.M. had a total of 9 top 40. Aerosmith has 20 top 40 singles, including a number 1. Just from these three bands, R.E.M. was the least popular and I think quite easily argued the least influential. I'm still open to R.E.M. but you have to make a case for them.

other people should jump in on this but my general impression was that REM was one of the most hugely influential artists of the last several decades, and, unlike van halen or aerosmith, they continue to be hugely influential

[Blaine Ryan]

R.E.M.'s influence has been as widespread as any rock band's of the last 30 years, though I don't think it's necessarily always discernible. They didn't invent jangle-pop (or however you want to classify it) but they certainly popularized it, and there have been hundreds of bands who have co-opted the style from them since. This is still going on in today's indie-rock scene--Real Estate's self-titled and Days albums are two examples, off the top of my head. Hell, I liked The Decemberists' The King is Dead largely because it sounded like R.E.M. (at times, that is), which according to Colin Meloy--and considering Peter Buck guests on the record--isn't a coincidence. And Stephen Malkmus dedicated an entire song to how the band has impacted him (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DvVYwXqFEE).

Their influence in populist circles has been just as vast. Groups like Counting Crows, U2, Coldplay, Nirvana, and, yes, Pearl Jam have cited the band's effect on them. Again, you couldn't necessarily deduce this from the music these bands make, at least not all of the time, but I think that largely has to do with how difficult it is to create a genuine facsimile of the R.E.M. sound. Regardless of which era of their career you're talking about, nobody has ever nor will ever sound like R.E.M. beyond a superficial resemblance, just as nobody will ever sound like the Beatles beyond a superficial resemblance, and in my mind that's far more indicative of greatness than selling 95 million albums or the fact that Eddie Van Halen is your guitarist.

[surfndestroy]

R.E.M.'s influence has been as widespread as any rock band's of the last 30 years, though I don't think it's necessarily always discernible. They didn't invent jangle-pop (or however you want to classify it) but they certainly popularized it, and there have been hundreds of bands who have co-opted the style from them since. This is still going on in today's indie-rock scene--Real Estate's self-titled and Days albums are two examples, off the top of my head. Hell, I liked The Decemberists' The King is Dead largely because it sounded like R.E.M. (at times, that is), which according to Colin Meloy--and considering Peter Buck guests on the record--isn't a coincidence. And Stephen Malkmus dedicated an entire song to how the band has impacted him (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DvVYwXqFEE).

Their influence in populist circles has been just as vast. Groups like Counting Crows, U2, Coldplay, Nirvana, and, yes, Pearl Jam have cited the band's effect on them. Again, you couldn't necessarily deduce this from the music these bands make, at least not all of the time, but I think that largely has to do with how difficult it is to create a genuine facsimile of the R.E.M. sound. Regardless of which era of their career you're talking about, nobody has ever nor will ever sound like R.E.M. beyond a superficial resemblance, just as nobody will ever sound like the Beatles beyond a superficial resemblance, and in my mind that's far more indicative of greatness than selling 95 million albums or the fact that Eddie Van Halen is your guitarist.

I fully agree that on artistic merit R.E.M. is the better band but I think it's a copout to say they are as influential but the influence just can't be seen.

I think just alone on having two 10x platinum albums that VH's infleunce is going to be greater. That's twice that they pretty much captured the public's focus and imagination. At that level of saturation their influence is going far beyond just rock audiences and cross-pollinating into multiple genres for a generation to come. It becomes part of the DNA of music and influences pretty much everything after, acknowledged or not. Even if the influence on U2 is the Edge saying, well I can't do that so I'll go in another direction.

On a different note, surprised I haven't seen The Beastie Boys be mentioned.

[MattA75]

My .02 as a longtime (mostly) lurker of this thread

Blaine Ryan's post above is probably the best encapsulation of an argument for why R.E.M. is the most influential American band, however, his own arguments could also be arguments for Aerosmith or Van Halen or even Kiss (laugh all you want, in terms of influence, Kiss has to be considered one of the biggest influences in American rock music...and I'm not exactly a big fan)...even something as simple as the guitar interplay between Joe Perry and Brad Whitford could be used to describe Aerosmith's influence on every band with two guitars in it, whether the band sounds anything like Aerosmith or not (in fact, the Perry/Whitford thing relates very well to Mike/Stone as a working pair in Pearl Jam)

in terms of greatest American band? One could argue that after 1996, R.E.M. wasn't really culturally relevant at all, their biggest hit after that (if you could call it that) was probably The Great Beyond. You can argue that Aerosmith all but broke up for two albums, bombed with a comeback album, and then went pop for the next quarter century of their career (mind you, them going pop opened up their older material to new audiences yet to discover it). You can argue all you want for Van Halen, but no one takes the Hagar years seriously, Cherone was a disaster, so you're left with an (albeit impressive) 6-7 year run.

Lastly, I would say Aerosmith is still a pretty big influence on a lot of bands, you just won't hear them because rock radio is dead. Blackberry Smoke would be one good example (Silvertide was another). I don't know if it's more or less than R.E.M., but they still have a fair representation.

[MattA75]

It's interesting to note though that Van Halen's newest record tripled the first week (and probably total) sales of both the last Aerosmith and R.E.M. records...I know there were other factors there (first record with Roth in almost 20 years), the fact that in 2012 188,000 people bought a Van Halen record in its first week of release shows just how much esteem there still is/was for that band

[stip]

that is impressive (regarding VH). And so I guess we need to draw a distinction between the 'influence' a band has on other musicians and the mainstream cultural footprint they leave with an audience

[matt reeder]

As far as I'm concerned there are 10 contenders for the "best American rock band".

Grateful Dead
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Aerosmith
Ramones
Talking Heads
Metallica
R.E.M.
Sonic Youth
Nirvana
Pearl Jam

That is taking into account influence, longevity and output. I credited Creedence for being insanely influential in very short period of time - they're still extremely influential and popular even today. Sonic Youth gets credited because of their vast, vast, vast influence, extremely long period of sustained creativity and because somebody had to represent the "underground". If you wanted to replace them with the Replacements or Pixies I wouldn't fault you. Van Halen probably belongs but they only released 2 albums that I think are classics. I discounted Guns & Roses because they only released 1 classic album and half of another. The Eagles don't count despite how popular they are because they were and still are fucking terrible. The Doors are massively overrated as well - not very influential and their music doesn't have the timeless quality all of those other bands' best albums have.

Out of those bands I think R.E.M. actually does come out on top. What a great, great, great band. The mark of how great they are? There isn't even close to a consensus on what their best album is (to me, it's Murmur). Many others would offer Reckoning, Fables, Life's Rich Pageant, Document, Automatic, New Adventures or even Up. There are times when I think I would even say Monster. What a great fucking band.

[stip]

one of the remarkable things about REM (I think) is that they moved through (and arguably ruled) the same indy circles of sonic youth, replacements, etc. for years and THEN went on to become one of the hugest bands in the world. Has any other band had that career arc?

[surfndestroy]

one of the remarkable things about REM (I think) is that they moved through (and arguably ruled) the same indy circles of sonic youth, replacements, etc. for years and THEN went on to become one of the hugest bands in the world. Has any other band had that career arc?

That's not fair. Van Halen started out of the gates as both ground breaking and huge. I would say Talking Heads had that same arc but to a lesser extent the hugeness but they always retained much more of their indie sound and quirkiness. Much of R.E.M.'s mainstream success came with a change in their sound. Except for a couple of their hits I lose pretty much all interest in them after Green.

[surfndestroy]

That is taking into account influence, longevity and output. Van Halen probably belongs but they only released 2 albums that I think are classics. I discounted Guns & Roses because they only released 1 classic album and half of another.

If you're a guitarist, there is before and after Eddie Van Halen and Van Halen l. I can't imagine being much more influential than that.
Same could be said for Appetite For Destruction. That album changed the industry for a decade. I do not think that Nirvana and/or grunge would have had the popularity they did without GnR paving the way sonically and bringing raw guitars to the public domain again.

I think Beastie Boys should be included on your list. ZZ Top should consider some mention, and your list is definitely missing KISS. I dislike them but I can't deny them their due.

[MattA75]

they're not #1, but Skynyrd should be mentioned as well as at least part of the conversation