R.E.M. Albums

[kool]

Ok, this is the CD I actually did burn over the weekend. Just short of 78 mins long. It's only slightly different than my original list since I wanted one song to flow into the next, and I must say, this was a blast to listen to. I'm already working on disc 2 [which will open with one of my favourite, totally overlooked tracks, 'Leave' from NAIHF].

As you can see, I've left most of their ballads and the bulk of their IRS stuff for the second disc, which I probably won't burn until I've bought Murmur so I can add a few tracks from that too. Maybe some time next week...

1. The One I Love
2. Orange Crush
3. Turn You Inside Out
4. Pop Song ‘89
5. Finest Worksong
6. So. Central Rain
7. Begin The Begin
8. Fall On Me
9. World Leader Pretend
10. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
11. Monty Got a Raw Deal
12. What’s The Frequency Kenneth?
13. Lotus [this works great right after Kenneth]
14. The Apologist
15. Daysleeper
16. How The West Was Won…
17. So Fast, So Numb
18. Imitation Of Life
19. Chorus and The Ring
20. Drive

[kool]

... and this is my second disc, still in the works and subject to change. The gaps are where the Murmur tracks will most likely be going.

1. Leave
2. Bittersweet Me
3. E-bow The Letter
4. Find The River
5. It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
6. You Are The Everything
7. Feeling Gravity's Pull
8. Maps and Legends
9. Driver 8
10. Cuyahoga
11.
12. Pretty Persuasion
13. I Believe
14. Nightswimming
15.
16. New Test Leper
17. Try Not To Breathe
18. Harborcoat
19. Man On The Moon
20.

[JACkory]

melon1 said:

Hey JAC, I see that you put 2 Life's Rich Pageant songs on there and neither of them was "Fall On Me" C'mon man! Certainly the best on that album and, in fact, possibly the best song they ever wrote. I really can't pick between it and "Talk About the Passion", which I noticed you DID include that one on your lineup(good job). Those 2 are the best 2 songs R.E.M. ever wrote.

"Fall On Me" is a decent song...it's just not one of my absolute favorites. In fact, the whole of Lifes Rich Pagaent suffers from Don Gehman's tinny production, IMO. Gehman's John Mellencamp's guy, and responsible for the tinny sound on his albums, too.

[kool]

Just compiling these lists and looking at everyone else's just made me realize what an amazing body of work these guys have. They could split up tomorrow and I wouldn't complain. They've given more than their share of amazing tunes.

What's really odd was I was looking at achn2b's and Jac's lists and I think there's not a single song on their lists which also ended up on mine [the 1st one], and yet still I love the majority of the songs they posted. That's how great a band they were...

[Kensterberg]

All this R.E.M. talk has had me listening to 'em quite a bit of late. Here's a cd I'm burning for the drive home tonight, clocks in at exactly 79 minutes!

1. Crazy (Dead Letter Office)
2. 1,000,000 (Chronic Town EP)
3. Half A World Away (Out Of Time)
4. Fretless (In Time: The Best Of R.E.M. 1988-2003 [Bonus Disc])
5. Dream (All I Have To Do) (Lifes Rich Pageant [UK Bonus Edition])
6. The One I Love (Live) (In Time: The Best Of R.E.M. 1988-2003 [Bonus Disc])
7. South Central Rain (Vancouver Rehearsal Tapes - May 10, 2003)
8. Ages Of You (Dead Letter Office)
9. Life And How To Live It (Fables Of The Reconstruction)
10. Little America (Vancouver Rehearsal Tapes - May 10, 2003)
11. Pretty Persuasion (Reckoning)
12. Disturbance At The Heron House (Live) (Document [UK Bonus Edition])
13. Fall On Me (Live) (Crush with Eyeliner - EP)
14. Drive (Live) (In Time: The Best Of R.E.M. 1988-2003 [Bonus Disc])
15. Orange Crush (Green)
16. Turn You Inside-Out (Green)
17. Losing My Religion (Out Of Time)
18. Why Not Smile (Alt. Version) (In Time: The Best Of R.E.M. 1988-2003 [Bonus Disc])
19. I'll Take The Rain (Reveal)
20. The Great Beyond (In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003)
21. Superman (Life's Rich Pageant [UK Bonus Edition])

[kool]

That's a pretty cool list Ken. I suppose the fact that many of the songs aren't the original versions keeps it fresh. Throw out 'Losing My Religion' and you've got yourself a great a disc there.

[Kensterberg]

Yeah, I've been living with songs like So.Central Rain for something like 22 years now ... I still love it, but it's nice to hear it played a little differently. Also, I find that there's less of a jarring difference between the early and late recordings when you've got the current band playing the old songs.

And, I've never been wild about the original version of The One I Love. It's just too much style and not enough substance (an odd complaint about a band who long made a virtue out of the fact that the audience generally had no clue what the hell Stipe was mumbling about, and that his lyrics often didn't make sense even when you could make them out). But I find that by stripping the song down to just vocal, piano and guitar, the band reveals a solid core that Scott Litt's production overwhelmed on Document. I almost never listen to the original track anymore -- I've got two different acoustic versions and those are what I cue up when I want to hear The One I Love.

BTW, if you don't have Fretless, you really need to hunt it down. It's a song that the band cut for (I believe) the soundtrack to Until the End of the World, which places it between Out of Time and Automatic For the People, and it's as good as anything off either of those records. Nothing shiny or happy about it, Fretless is a moody piece that climaxes with Stipe repeating "Don't talk to me about being alone." Fits in perfectly with songs like Low, Country Feedback, or Monty Got a Raw Deal (hell, most of Automatic, really). A truly great track, if anything qualifies as "the great lost R.E.M. song," Fretless is it.

[frag]

Amen man. "Fretless" is incredible.

...and now for something completely different...

Some bands I like to name check,
And one of them is REM,
Classic songs with a long history
Southern boys just like you and me.
REM!
Flashback to 1983,
Chronic Town was their first EP
Later on came Reckoning
Finster's art, and titles to match:
South Central Rain, Don't Go Back To Rockville,
Harborcoat, Pretty Persuasion,
You were born to be a camera,
Time After Time was my least favourite song,
Time After Time was my least favourite song.
The singer, he had long hair
And the drummer he knew restrait.
And the bass man he had all the right moves
And the guitar player was no saint.
So lets go way back to the ancient times
When there were no 50 states,

And on a hill there stands Sherman
Sherman and his mates.
And they're marching through Georgia,
we're marching through Georgia,
we're marching through Georgia
G-G-G-G-Georgia
They're marching through Georgia,
we're marching through Georgia,
marching through Georgia
G-G-G-G-Georgia
and there stands REM
-Pavement, "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence"
...speaking of lost tracks.

[JACkory]

Too bad there's no market for liner notes these days...that would be a nice set of 'em for an REM anthology, frag...
"Time After Time" was my least favorite of Reckoning, too. But I liked the bridge.

[frag]

jackory said:

Too bad there's no market for liner notes these days...

See, that's why you've got to write your own. Re-write lyrics if necessary. And I often will throw in random pictures of farm animals. Just my way of giving a little back to the bands I love, you know.

[sisyphus]

so i'm the only one who voted for Document, eh? damn. that album had such a HUGE impact on my in eighth and ninth grade. it sent me on quite the lil' political bent...

[frag]

I think the diversity of the votes says it all for REM.
...like the Beatles, they could easily be anyone's cup of tea.

[sisyphus]

well said.

[ScottsyII]

God I gotta catch up on this thread.... been out of the loop far too much lately! I s'pose moving countries will do that to ya!

[melon1]

Which are you votin' for Scottsy?