I love love love REM, but I think they ran out of good songs about 12 years ago.

NoseBrain: I love love love REM, but I think they ran out of good songs about 12 years ago.

I agree, but this one seems like a pretty decent job at tapping into their roots at least a little..

blameitonchemo: I agree, but this one seems like a pretty decent job

I admit I haven't heard it yet. I'll check it out.

NoseBrain: I love love love REM, but I think they ran out of good songs about 12 years ago.

agreed and this is going to get sooo much radio play i'll be tired of it in a week.

Like it - hear it almost every day coming home from work. Ask me in a month. ;)

NoseBrain

I love love love REM, but I think they ran out of good songs about 12 years ago.

Pretty much agree. Their albums used to be solid from start to finish, now, not so much. I still like them all (although Around The Sun was a letdown) but the last great one was New Adventures.

I'll still get it the day it is released.

/Miss Bill Berry.

NoseBrain: I love love love REM, but I think they ran out of good songs about 12 years ago.

I'd say 18, but I don't want to nitpick.

It's the end of the world as we know it. I feel fine.

MacG: It's the end of the world as we know it. I feel fine.

That can be changed...

PleasedToMeetMe: I'd say 18, but I don't want to nitpick.

I think I could agree with that too, but New Adventures is the last one that I still listen to, well, ever.

HAHAHA REM TALK ABOUT EVISCERATE MY MEMORY!!!!

/ok, I got nothin'

It sounds just like REM. I kinda like it. Hey, I DO feel fine.

meh, s'allrite.

monster was the beginning of the end.

torgo jr.: meh, s'allrite.

monster was the beginning of the end.

Indeed. This, plus an observation that the guitar on this track is annoyingly Monster-esque. But it's listenable.

gterz66: /Miss Bill Berry.

Yeah, R.E.M. with Bill Berry was the best band in America.

Meh. It's the sort of bland song that will make the soundtrack rounds of every special moment on all of the network shows.

Kind of like how The Fray's "How to Save a Life" was on every other blasted show a couple of years ago.

I have to credit any band that can do the same major-minor-major chord progression consistently for every single song and still make into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (they did make it, right?).

Sounds like Monster revisited. Pass.

/Call me when they revisit Reckoning.

NoseBrain: I love love love REM, but I think they ran out of good songs about 12 years ago.

Driver 8

Orange Crush

Am I the only one who liked it then? Sounded like R.E.M. from 1985 traveled forward ten years and recorded Monster. Does that make sense?

Gee, let's pretend we're still in college well into our fourties.

That was my first listen through and it is alright - and it does sound like early R.E.M. - before Stipe got all pretentious and full of himself and years before he was quoted as saying: "On planes I always cry. Something about altitude, the lack of oxygen and the bad movies." Man up, Michael! Peter Buck's guitar is always right on. I will buy the album/CD/iTune/whatever.

Meh. Sounds uninspired. And uninspiring.

getrz66
/Miss Bill Berry.

I would think he would prefer "Mr."


/snark off

// i'm going to go ahead and say that they haven't made a really good album since "Automatic for the People". [because i've only listened to "New Adventures" once - not enough times to judge on that album.... i've heard it's really good, tho - , and "monster" which was just ok/good.]
/// anybody else think that "Stranger Currencies" is just a partial rewrite of "Everybody Hurts"?

It's ok, not exactly a life affirming experience, but still...

I have not heard it yet, but i am going to go out on a limb and say it will suck. It will not jus suck, but it will suck long and hard (like subby mom)

/clients create rage, and random snark is a good way to vent rage
//so is smashing puppies with magical hammers made of pure rage
///REM does suck though

NoseBrain: I love love love REM, but I think they ran out of good songs about 12 years ago.

Two words: Bill Berry. Not an incredible drummer, but he HAD to be contributing something very useful in the rehearsal room and the studio. The proof is in the pudding.

That said...I do find some songs on their past 3 discs to be very listenable, after they've grown on you a bit. Especially Reveal. But "listenable" or even "enjoyable" are not enough...not when you're talking about REM.

/one of the few people on earth who can honestly claim to have bought Chronic Town the day it came out
//oh, and the 30 seconds I heard of the new song remind me of Out of Time
///ymmv

I hate anything that keeps Peter Buck from touring with the Minus 5/Robyn Hitchcock/John Wesley Harding.

snooze.

That rates one rather huge "meh".

I loves me some REM, but they shoulda packed it in after Bill quit.

REM cannot, will not, and will never do no wrong.

/that's my opinion, and i'm sticking with it.

this song is pretty damn boring.

hell, most of "up" and "reveal" sounded better than this song.

My favorite REM albums are Document and Murmer, personally. Green is good too.

The song sucks.
I know this without even listening to it.
Because REM, in fact, sucks.

Listened to it for the first time a week ago. Since then, I turn it off when it comes on.


sucks +1

That's awful! Now I've got to go and look for a "Wendell Gee" clip to clean my ears out.

I think they should have gotten a different producer. Sounds like they put the band in a dumpster with one microphone.

Blech.
Man, at one point R.E.M. was my favorite band...they started going downhill after "Life's Rich Pageant." They should have stopped completely after "Automatic for the People."

/get off my lawn
//my current fave is Iron & Wine

"Hey, hey, hey! Pull this bus over to the side of the pretentiousness turnpike! I want everybody out, I want the shiny people over here and the happy people over here! I represent angry, gun-toting, meat-eating farking people! ...Sit down and shut the fark up, Michael!"

- Denis Leary

/Our eternal gratitude is bestowed upon Denis Leary

Not bad. Better than most of their stuff since Green, anyway. But if they had written and recorded this during the Life's Rich Pageant era, it would have been a throw-away B-side.

AIDS hasn't taken them yet?

It's OK and I'll check out the whole cd before purchase. I lost interest in REM's new stuff quite a while ago.

Been a fan since 1982 when a friend that was going to Georgia Tech gave me a tape. Much prefer their IRS era, that Byrdsy sound. Stipe's nonsense lyrics.

The Automatic record was great, though. Green was pretty good.

Crocodile: Blech.
Man, at one point R.E.M. was my favorite band...they started going downhill after "Life's Rich Pageant." They should have stopped completely after "Automatic for the People."

/get off my lawn
//my current fave is Iron & Wine

Give New Adventures another try. Takes a few listens, but it's worth it. Trust me.

Tired of that Non-Singer Singer hipness crap still from back when you all drank the REM KoolAid.

Glenechocreek: Gee, let's pretend we're still in college well into our fourties.

gterz66: NoseBrain

I love love love REM, but I think they ran out of good songs about 12 years ago.

Pretty much agree. Their albums used to be solid from start to finish, now, not so much. I still like them all (although Around The Sun was a letdown) but the last great one was New Adventures.

I'll still get it the day it is released.

/Miss Bill Berry.

True.

The greatest R.E.M. video of all time is Imitation of Life.

first impressions: really annoying (dumbed down to the point of insult, ala Monster) hook, nice chorus, awesome bridge, and as usual I have no clue as to what it's about...

Still better than 99.9999% of what's out there, or 100% of what the Grammy's crapped out the other night.

/ymmv

Funny how "EVERYONE" likes REM circa 1987, yet the only REM you ever hear, anywhere, is REM circa 1992/3.

/grown out of indie wank circles