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

[digster]

Leave
Sweetness Follows
Man on the Moon
Cuyahoga
Harborcoat
Country Feedback
Me In Honey
Begin the Begin
Hope
Gardening at Night


Runners up are Losing My Religion, Strange Currencies, Radio Free Europe (most of Murmur for that matter), Carnival of Sorts, Undertow, Chorus and the Ring and Horse to Water among many, many others. I can't think of a band it would be harder to make a top 10 for.

[BootsToAsses]

Top 10 is too hard, so here is 15 in no order:

It Happened Today
Bad Day
Walk It Back
Maps and Legends
Begin The Begin
Finest Worksong
Half A World Away
Let Me In
So Fast So Numb
Daysleeper
The Lifting
Electron Blue
Sing For The Submarine
Man On The Moon
Discoverer

I also LOVE Mine Smell Like Honey, Leave, Oh My Heart, Fall On Me, Walk Unafraid, Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight. Love most songs actually lol.

[pjammer66]

These days..
pretty persuasion..
get up..
country feedback..
undertow..
leave..
strange currencies..
let me in..
find the river..
high speed train..
i've been high..
living well.........
it happened today..
until the day is done..

Thats this weeks essential REM maddening loop.

[kreng]

[tattooedeverything]

My top 10 in no order:

Drive
How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us
Country Feedback
Low
I Don't Sleep, I Dream
What's The Frequency, Kenneth?
Bittersweet Me
The Flowers of Guatemala
Sweetness Follows
You Are The Everything

[epilogue]

Bittersweet Me is a really lovely song. One of those songs that doesn't get mentioned enough.

[AndySlash]

man, i always forget low. love that song.

[Hatfield]

Love this thread title and the synchronicity of life. For the last two months I've been hurled back into New Adventures. So glad to see all the love on here as well.

I was reading that in making the album they felt a connection to Neil Young's Time Fades Away and for the first time I noticed the similarities in Low Desert and Last Dance.

I guess I need to take the time to make an actual list, but I am confident that HiFi is in my top10 albums by any band.

[liebzz]

Love this thread title and the synchronicity of life. For the last two months I've been hurled back into New Adventures. So glad to see all the love on here as well.

I was reading that in making the album they felt a connection to Neil Young's Time Fades Away and for the first time I noticed the similarities in So Fast, So Numb and Last Dance.

I guess I need to take the time to make an actual list, but I am confident that HiFi is in my top10 albums by any band.

I was listening to this in the car for almost a week until my wife interjected and demanded to know why every song was Bittersweet Me. Turns out we were driving a lot and the album had repeated itself through 5 or 6 times before she took control of the radio.

[stip]

you know, that pirate song sounded pretty good on the first listen

[AndySlash]

http://remhq.com/news_story.php?id=1758

PRESS RELEASE:
25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Of The Band’s Major-Label Breakthrough Includes Original Album Remastered And Live Disc Spotlighting The Penultimate Show Of 1989 World Tour; Available May 14 From Rhino

Green Remastered Will Also Be Available On 180-Gram Vinyl The Same Day

Five Song Live In Greensboro EP Will Be Released
On CD As Record Store Day Exclusive On April 20

R.E.M. achieved global success with the 1988 release of GREEN, the Athens, Georgia, quartet’s sixth studio album and first for Warner Bros. Records, which would be the band’s label home for the rest of their recording career. While R.E.M. was fast becoming one of the most acclaimed and revered acts in the U.S., GREEN was their first album to gain the attention of a worldwide audience. Packed with tracks destined to be definitive additions to the band’s canon, including “Orange Crush,” “Pop Song 89,” and “Stand,” GREEN was certified double platinum by the RIAA and doubled the domestic sales of the band’s previous release. GREEN continued R.E.M.’s dedication to the message of social consciousness, as evidenced by the album’s title, which would go on to became a ubiquitous buzzword for environmentally friendly initiatives.

To celebrate the landmark album’s 25-year anniversary, Rhino is releasing a two-disc deluxe edition that features the remastered original album accompanied by a disc of live performances taken from the penultimate show of R.E.M.’s 130-date Green World Tour. All 21 songs were recorded in Greensboro, North Carolina, on November 10, 1989, just miles from where Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry had their very first recording session at Mitch Easter’s Drive-In Studio in Winston-Salem.

The anniversary set is packaged in a hard clamshell box (similar to previous R.E.M. reissues) and comes with four postcards and a foldout poster, plus insightful liner notes by Uncut editor, Allan Jones. GREEN: 25TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION will be available on May 14 as a 2-disc set and digitally. The same day, the remastered album with original art and packaging will also be available on 180-gram vinyl.

In anticipation of the anniversary set, Rhino will release a limited edition, five-track EP as part of Record Store Day. This exclusive CD features a handful of performances from the Greensboro show that, due to space constraints, are not found on the Deluxe Edition, including the Green track “I Remember California” and classics like “So. Central Rain” and “Feeling Gravitys Pull.” Limited to just 2,500 copies, the disc comes with an original (non-reproduction) patch from the Green Tour. These patches were recently uncovered in the band’s vault. The LIVE IN GREENSBORO EP will be available for Record Store Day on April 20 for $7.98. For a list of participating stores, please visit wrecordstoreday.com.

The concert spread across the anniversary set and the Record Store Day EP captures a fiery set from R.E.M., which had been forged in the crucible of nearly one year of shows. R.E.M. performed most of GREEN (“Get Up” “World Leader Pretend” and “You Are The Everything”), while mixing in early favorites like “Fall On Me,” “Finest Worksong,” “The One I Love” and “Perfect Circle” from the band’s 1983 debut Murmur. The show also finds the band testing out new songs (“Low” and “Belong”) that would appear two years later on GREEN’s follow-up, Out Of Time.

For more information please visit:
remhq.com and
facebook.com/REMhq


GREEN: 25TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION
Track Listing

Disc One – Original Album
1. “Pop Song 89”
2. “Get Up”
3. “You Are The Everything”
4. “Stand”
5. “World Leader Pretend”
6. “The Wrong Child”
7. “Orange Crush”
8. “Turn You Inside Out”
9. “Hairshirt”
10. “I Remember California”
11. “Untitled”

Disc Two – Live In Greensboro 1989
1. “Stand”
2. “The One I Love”
3. “Turn You Inside Out”
4. “Belong”
5. “Exhuming McCarthy”
6. “Good Advices”
7. “Orange Crush”
8. “Cuyahoga”
9. “These Days”
10. “World Leader Pretend”
11. “I Believe”
12. “Get Up”
13. “Life And How To Live It”
14. “Its The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”
15. “Pop Song 89”
16. “Fall On Me”
17. “You Are The Everything”
18. “Begin The Begin”
19. “Low”
20. “Finest Worksong”
21. “Perfect Circle”

LIVE IN GREENSBORO EP – Record Store Day Exclusive

1. “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)”
2. “Feeling Gravitys Pull”
3. “Strange”
4. “King of Birds”
5. “I Remember California”

[Norah]

I saw that a week ago and meant to post it here.

[Mike]

I'm listening to Lifes Rich Pageant right now and thought I might just bump this thread. The last 2-3 years made me a huge R.E.M. fan as I was finally diving into their whole discography.

Fall On Me made me remember how much I love Stipe/Mills harmonies. It's especially wonderful when they sing two completely different melodies like in the chorus of Fall On Me and in It's The End Of The World. What's even better in ITEOTW is that Mills melody slowly takes the lead as it gets louder and louder with every chorus. It's just so beautifully done going from "Its' the eeend of the world as we knooow it" to "It's time I had some time aloooone".

[Mike]

I Believe.

[epilogue]

Yep.

[VinylGuy]

Its been a long time since i heard something from these guys. I just love them but most of their songs are attached to memories.

What a band...

[tattooedeverything]

Fall On Me made me remember how much I love Stipe/Mills harmonies. It's especially wonderful when they sing two completely different melodies like in the chorus of Fall On Me and in It's The End Of The World. What's even better in ITEOTW is that Mills melody slowly takes the lead as it gets louder and louder with every chorus. It's just so beautifully done going from "Its' the eeend of the world as we knooow it" to "It's time I had some time aloooone".

The "it's time I had some time alone" part is sung by both, by the way. You can hear Stipe in the left channel and Mills in the right channel. And of course, the "it's the end of the world as we know it" part has a three part harmony by Stipe, Mills and Berry. Also, did you catch the Bill Berry vocal part in the chorus of "Fall On Me"? He sings, "it's gonna fall" while Stipe and Mills are doing their parts.

[Mike]

Fall On Me made me remember how much I love Stipe/Mills harmonies. It's especially wonderful when they sing two completely different melodies like in the chorus of Fall On Me and in It's The End Of The World. What's even better in ITEOTW is that Mills melody slowly takes the lead as it gets louder and louder with every chorus. It's just so beautifully done going from "Its' the eeend of the world as we knooow it" to "It's time I had some time aloooone".

The "it's time I had some time alone" part is sung by both, by the way. You can hear Stipe in the left channel and Mills in the right channel. And of course, the "it's the end of the world as we know it" part has a three part harmony by Stipe, Mills and Berry. Also, did you catch the Bill Berry vocal part in the chorus of "Fall On Me"? He sings, "it's gonna fall" while Stipe and Mills are doing their parts.

I did not know this. Next time I listen to these songs I need to concentrate on that.

Murmur is spinning right now.

[stip]

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

[VinylGuy]

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

True words. Seeing them live was a full realization of how good they were.