ALBUM REACTION: R.E.M. - Green

[@AlexHaitz]

More R.E.M. Reactions: Chronic Town EP: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sHOvZGZ8mcSoqac Murmur: kzbin.info/www/bejne/maiao2eXor6Nipo Reckoning: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d5DMfKSHbdyCqNk Fables of the Reconstruction: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZibmJ57jb-cqaM Lifes Rich Pageant: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4uuXoVqdqd3gqM Document: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bn6ZeaSFo72DbLs Out of Time: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ip6QppiEeNqoZtU Automatic for the People: kzbin.info/www/bejne/npCtpnutadqqj7M New Adventures in Hi-Fi: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4CYaqeZpNKKaM0 Fall On Me: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZicc2R8eqh7q7s Here I Am Again: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f56pnnmagJ6tqNE Nightswimming: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eYaoiayKgM-VfM0 Tongue: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2XCqpiqe7Z5jtk

[@Turnabout]

Get Up was my alarm track through all of high school. Still love it.

[@kerristian3568]

Since the day it came out, Green has been my favourite REM record. There's a lot of sentiment attached to it in my life, but I still think it marks their creative peak, Every moment is perfect.

[@michaellear6904]

Same here. I was enduring a very dark time in my life when Green was released. To this very day it holds a special place for me.

[@dathorndike4908]

Green was a very good album in my opinion, but for me , Fables has always been the masterpiece in their catalog that I always go back to. Nothing they ever made sounds like that album. It is haunting, eclectic, and beautiful

[@BetheQuail]

The "Tourfilm" documentary of the Green Tour is one of the all-time great concert videos, I think. There's grit just in Stipe's crazy look in that one. And you get to see a better version of Get Up, a clever World Leader Pretend, and especially a version of King of Birds that turns what had been a forgettable song into one of their most moving. You can find these on YT, I think.

[@aldo34]

The version of 'These Days' on Tourfilm is fan-bloody-tastic

[@matthewowen2182]

Green is one of their best albums and was a big step forward, people started to really notice them , Your are Everything and Hairshirt for me are outstanding. This then led to stardom with losing my region and out of time, which still can’t believe you are going to miss out, half a world away and country feedback are along the veins of you are everything and hairshirt

[@AlexHaitz]

I've actually added Out of Time to the list!

[@edvonblue]

Not a fan of the Scott Litt production on this or Document - way too sanitized and poppy for my tastes. He looses all the ‘mysteriousness’ of their early stuff. World Leader Pretend really could have benefitted from that muddy mysterious sound of early 80s rem

[@Gboz90]

@@AlexHaitz you should also add their next three albums up to and including New Adventures in Hi-fi. Very much enjoying the reactions.

[@AlexHaitz]

@@Gboz90 Out of Time, Automatic, and Hi-Fi are the last REM albums I’ll be doing.

[@mattjohn4731]

@@AlexHaitz I can dig that. I really need someone to react to Guided By Voices. Robert Pollard is crazy prolific. Flaming Lips, Steve Earle, Immortal Technique, dead prez, Devo, CRASS, Bad Brains, Poison Girls, Slits, Minutemen? I love those

[@kevtruth]

Great summary. Green is consistently as good as some of the IRS albums. My goodness I forgot how great the song World Leader pretend is

[@aldo34]

Favourite REM album. Coherent, interesting, passionate...and kicks ass. Saw them live on the Green World Tour having previously thought that I didn't really like REM - to this day the best gig I've ever seen.

[@TheFreezerGeezer]

You can't have everything you want, but I'm a huuuge fan of possibly their most divisive album, Monster. Heavy reverb rock REM-style.

[@tricolore31]

Great album

[@secretsymphony]

I really like Monster. There's nothing wrong with reverb and growling guitars. The most important thing is that good songwriting is present.

[@tricolore31]

@@secretsymphony monster is my third favorite rem album

[@eboethrasher]

There's some great tremolo on Crush With Eyeliner, too.

[@jonmayer5206]

I saw them on the green tour twice. Once in St Louis and once at alpine Valley in Wisconsin. I will always remember the St Louis trip because of an incredible blizzard. 5 hour drive turned into 12. Also remember a pearl jam show where one of their shows ( elderly woman maybe) morphed into the wrong child. Phenomenal, that was also outdoors and in light snow at alpine around Halloween of 2000 I believe. Great times and memories, how I wish I could turn the clock back.

[@j.r.a.f.t.m.]

Great reaction Alex, yeah I love 'Green', it was the first album by them that grabbed me, the beauty of the album is that it isn't cohesive which gives it an arty feel, I love the ambition of the band as well, major label debut and they go all guns blazing. Personal favourites 'You Are The Everything', 'World Leader Pretend', 'The Wrong Child' which on certain days can get me near to tears as its about a child with social anxiety and of course 'Orange Crush'.

[@secretsymphony]

I love this album. Some unusual compositions and lyrics. I thought you'd like it.

[@michaellear6904]

I find the subject material of the lyrics to be fascinating and a refreshing change from the smaltz of popular culture.

[@AndrewLakeUK]

This was my first REM album, 15 at the time. Way back then, albums cost about the same as they do now, So when you found an album that spoke to you, you played it over and over again. This album, Velvet Underground's eponymous album, and "Children" by the Mission (have you done goth? ) introduced me to music.

[@AlexHaitz]

I’ve done The Cure and some Siouxsie tracks.

[@khalidmusadaq2080]

Yoooo it's gonna be LIT when you get to Automatic... I haven't been waiting for something like this in a long time! The perfect marriage between folksy, angsty I.R.S and poppy, beautifully melodic Warner Bros. R.E.M. Really hope you end up liking it.

[@chuleta1976]

This was my intro to REM. My older sister had this on tape when it came out. I was 11 or 12, and loved it. I actually thought they were somewhat unknown and that they were "my" band. Little did I know HOW big they actually were then.

[@RonHasson-wn8ek]

My favorite album. Can listen straight thru

[@martinpugh9631]

Hi Alex. Great review. I’d like to comment on the miracle of REM - that they went through the 80s, became a huge stadium band, and didn’t turn into egotistical maniacs. That’s one of the reasons why so many people have a soft spot for them even if the albums of mid-80s are a bit patchy in places. On the next few albums there are a surprising number of songs that are very sympathetic to vulnerable people e.g. The Wrong Child, and songs that are critical of the importance of a front man e.g. World Leader Pretend, Hairshirt. They didn’t tour in 1988 and this maybe is why the production and depth to some songs is back to Murmur levels.

[@safespacebear]

Green has always been my favorite of theirs.

[@MarcoHeijligers]

My all time favourite of R.E.M. GREEN (1989) 💚💜🖤

[@egorovvladimir7304]

Still waiting for Pulp's magnum opus This is hardcore album reaction :) Cause it's an album to listen to in its whole.

[@matthewregpala2834]

You really should consider going all the way up to Up, their first post-Berry album.

[@jeffmaehre7150]

Eponymous came out when the band was leaving IRS. That's why IRS put that stuff out. I don't think R.E.M. had any real say in the track listing--mostly singles--in fact it may have all been singles except for Romance. Kind of a throwaway album and just IRS cashing in.

[@andykndr]

Would really love for you to react to The Olivia Tremor Control - either one or both of their albums. They're based out of Athens, same as R.E.M., and were/are part of the Elephant 6 Collective that Neutral Milk Hotel was a part of. They have a lot of influence from The Beatles and Beach Boys (especially the Smile Sessions on their second album) but also definitely do their own thing. I've only found one reaction to them on here and been dying for more

[@eboethrasher]

Stand was overplayed, kinda the same reason people don't like Shiny Happy People, and they also tend to not like the fact that they seem kinda vapid. You are the Everything was the debut of mandolin for Peter Buck and it went on to be important. World Leader Pretend was the first song they ever printed the lyrics for in an album, because Michael felt the lyrics were very important on a political level. Another anachronism about the album was that on most versions of it, if you held the cover up to light, there was a faint 4 glossed over the 2 Rs on the cover. Don't know why. This was my first TRUE album by them, I had heard Document but this was the first album I bought by them. And the only times I ever saw them on tour were the twice on this tour, and they were amazing on this tour. This album was great but people felt a bit let down by stuff like Stand, I think. But it certainly holds an important place in the pantheon. Me, I think that they started dropping off after Automatic. Monster was interesting but by the time New Adventures came out, I was a bit checked out. As far as the backing vocals go, I think the one thing I love is how they will sing distinct parts, with different lyrics, under whatever Michael is singing, creating almost a feeling of something sung in round. It is one of the big strong points for them, for sure. "Fall on Me" is one of the easiest examples to think of, when Michael is singing the repetitive "Don't Fall on Me", Mike Mills is singing "what is it up in the air for, if it's there for long, it's over it's over me" meanwhile Bill is singing "it's gonna fall" repeatedly. The result is sheer bliss. Untitled was the big start of the experimentation, Buck played drums, Bill played bass, and I think Mike played guitar and the organ? Hence the herky jerky drumbeat.

[@eboethrasher]

Oh, and if you didn't read it online, the bridge to Get Up featured precisely 12 music boxes playing at the same time, thanks to Bill Berry - "I had a dream that we should set 12--not 11 not 13, but 12--music boxes going at the same time. They were all like, 'Well.... Okay...' And it worked. I mean, maybe it DIDN'T work, but it's there forever now"

[@jeffmaehre7150]

Anachronism means something that is out of place in terms of time. So if an old western movie has a bottle of coca-cola, that's an anachronism.

[@joeschmoe487]

Every REM album has some good songs, some forgettable songs. How many good vs forgettable is how I rank them. This one only has 2 songs i really like so it is lower ranked to me.

[@AlexHaitz]

Fair enough!

[@tricolore31]

I agree

[@musicaddict5076]

Even Murmur?

[@chrisdodie]

I agree with you on STAND......I am 57 and saw them at LSU when all they played on the radio or and bars was "EOTW. and I feel fine" BUT.............. WORLD LEADER PRETEND is not only my favorite REM song, but could be top 5 EVER. Sorry if you don't agree. Listen to the Darius Rucker do WLP at the 40th anniversary concert. (screw what other people say, its your opinion and don't let other people bother you) I am probably 20 years older but I put everyone with a bad attitude out of my life and only hang out with positive and good people.

[@edwardlosty549]

In retrospect this was theirJohn the Baptist to the Out of Time’s Jesus. Radio friendly (imperial phase) REM limbering up. The great production had arrived, the mandolin songs weren’t quite right, but you can tell where it’s going.

[@14gilbertst]

After you hear a song like World Leader Pretend, or Half a World Away, songs like Stand are just too ridiculous. I think Get Up pulls off what Stand......and Shiny Happy People attempt. The Wrong Child isn't aimless in the least. The topic is specific. I think Dead Letter Office is a better album than, Reckoning and Fables. They take more risks. The songs are mostly high quality demos.

[@eboethrasher]

yeah but as we all know, Ages of You and Burning Down are basically both the same song, even though I love both of them to death. There are also a plethora of covers on DLO, so I wouldn't rate it above Reckoning. Just doing Rockville country is enough of a risk for them. Plus stuff like Harbourcoat and Letter Never Sent are actually great songs, as well as Seven Chinese Brothers. I think if Alex had listened to them in a different order and heard Reckoning before having heard Murmur, he might have appreciated the songs on Reckoning more. I guess having listened to the stuff in the 80s when I wasn't micro-genre labeling everything and comparing it to their other albums, I enjoyed all of it more. As far as Shiny Happy People, it has way more going for it than Stand AND Get Up - the mandolin, Kate, and the intro/bridge half time parts. AND, a great version with the Muppets.

[@jeffmaehre7150]

@@eboethrasher More people who have no idea what they're talking about. Dead Letter Office is a COMPILATION OF B-SIDES AND OUTTAKES. You're talking about it like it's a standard album. They didn't take risks on the album becuase it's not an album. It's B-sides recorded over 4-5 years.

[@jackbarnum9110]

DEAD LETTER OFFICE

[@eboethrasher]

He should do it AFTER New Adventures, just come back to it.

[@samstevenson5328]

Too bad Hairshirt isn’t a nod to The Birthday Party lol