Red Mosquito

Longtime R.E.M. fan here. Back in the day, I used to opine that R.E.M.’s first five albums contained not a single bad song. That ended with their major label debut, Green, which I loved but not every single song. From Green onward, every album had at least one or two clunkers, with the number really starting to add up in the later years.

As was the case with so many things I thought when I was young, I was pretty off base. Listening to old R.E.M. again, there are some real clunkers on those first five albums, or at least songs that haven’t aged well.

Murmur
We Walk
West of Fields

Reckoning
Second Guessing
Camera
Little America

Fables
Life and How to Live It
Can’t Get There From Here
Auctioneer

Life’s Rich Pageant
Cuyahoga
Hyena
Underneath the Bunker
What If We Give It Away?
Superman

Document
Strange

That's a lot of material I could easily live without. Of course, what remains is still as good as ever. But I'm surprised. I once thought Life's Rich Pageant was their best album, but today I'm only interested in about half of it. And I'd probably enjoy Green more than some of these. It's aged better than expected. So for you R.E.M. fans out there (and I know there are some), what are the clunkers from the first five albums, in your estimation?

I love "Life & How to Live It."

"Cuyahoga" is INCREDIBLE.

The only early REM tunes that don't really do it for me are a few from Document ("Strange," "Lightning Hopkins"). I can listen to pretty much all of their first four albums without ever feeling the urge to skip a song.

This thread is going to be controversial.

Blasphemy!

There are NO bad songs on Fables! None whatsoever! You are so wrong...

I personally don't care whether or not it has aged properly or not. To me, it's a perect snap-shot. And therefore its immune to the "aging" argument.

Rems early records are curiously timeless for me

Radio free Europe or whatever it's called. That's sounds dated

REM is one of those bands that really intrigued me for about 3 years, and now I almost never have any interest in listening to them.

Kevin Davis wrote:The only early REM tunes that don't really do it for me are a few from Document ("Strange," "Lightning Hopkins"). I can listen to pretty much all of their first four albums without ever feeling the urge to skip a song.

Document is probably my least favorite of the pre-Reveal album.

I disagree with almost all of those. Cuyahoga, Little America and Life and How to Live It are in particular some of the greatest songs for me.

I'm in the midst of working my way straight through their catalog, and it's pretty remarkable how well it holds up. Also, it's notable how their work ethic or prolific approach to songwriting really paid off. By the time they'd finished their first decade of playing together they were starting work on their seventh record, and had put out an album a year for six years from '83-'88. There's maybe a few clunkers in there, but the sheer amount of classic stuff overwhelms any missteps.

McParadigm wrote:REM is one of those bands that really intrigued me for about 3 years, and now I almost never have any interest in listening to them.

This has been my experience as well. Maybe a couple years longer. Bill Berry retired and so did I. Not cause he left. I don't really have a reason why.

Pretty much enjoy all of early R.E.M.

Maybe I should listen to REM.

BurtReynolds wrote:Maybe I should listen to REM.

yeah I couldnt make it out of the 80s.

I can listen to REM anytime. They never get stale.

I would actually say I've had pretty much the opposite reaction (although I only really started getting into R.E.M. about 10 years ago, so it's not like I've been listening to the older stuff since it came out). There were always a few songs on each album that I didn't like and often skipped, but now there are relatively few. Some of them are among my favourite R.E.M. songs now, and I can never figure out how I didn't like them at first.

Reckoning is one of my all time favorite albums.

there are songs I don't like from the early records, but it is rarely a question of aging for me. I didn't like them when I first heard them and don't like them now. There are also songs I used to like more than I do now, but there's a difference between getting tired of them and not aging, methinks.

McParadigm wrote:REM is one of those bands that really intrigued me for about 3 years, and now I almost never have any interest in listening to them.

you're lucky I don't have the attention span to remember this for when I need to invalidate your opinions to try and win an argument.