In my humble opinion the last great ‘old style’ REM album was ‘New Adventures In HiFi’(NAIHF). If you’re after ROCK, then (as Syme mentioned) its ‘Monster’ hand down.
But R.E.M where never a ROCK band, well not really, They did covers of ‘Toys In The Attic’ (Aerosmith) and ‘Strange’ (Wire) but they also did covers of ‘Wichita Linesman’ (Glen Campbell) and ‘8 Miles High’ (The Byrds) and I think spiritually REM come closer to the last 2 than the first 2. Whatever way you paint them, they are good ole’ boys that grew up on rural Georgia in the 70’s.
Yes they seem to have lost their way, many commentators mention that the downward slide coincided with Bill Berry leaving, siting album sales of ‘UP’, ‘Reveal’ and ‘Around the Sun’ as proof of this. Personally ‘Up’ is one of my favorite albums, no so much a rock album as such, but it has some good points nevertheless. ‘Reveal’ I like too, but there is only a few songs on ‘Around the Sun’ that I can listen to – One more like that and I would have to call it quits.
The producer for their next CD is a guy called Jacknife Lee, who produced U2’s last album, so there is hope yet.
BTW, they are releasing a version of John Lennon's ‘#9 Dream’ with Bill on drums for a charity project. Have a listen.
3 comments:
I've never considered REM to be rock. But to out this into context, I don't consider Husker Du or Nirvana to be rock either - they're "pop".
The last album I have a real (i.e. non-pirate) copy of is NAIHF. I have Reveal, but I haven't listened to it more than a couple of times.
Personally, I think they've been going downhill since Mitch Easter stopped producing their records, but I'm just an old fogey these days who doesn't think much produced after 1995 is any good.
The "if you want to rock..." comment was focussed on that album - not them as a whole. When they had an edge - they had an edge - I thought their "lets relaese a rock album" was a bit contrieved.
but it sold bazillions of copies so...wadda I know?
I mean I pride myself on being able to say the year a beatles song came out when I hear them on the radio - so I'm NOT a good litimus paper test on ANYTHING cool.
ARE YOU APRIL 20 ENOUGH?
People who aren't April 20 enough make Carmen Electra sad.
....you don't want to make Carmen Electra cry.
http://www.hotterbabes.com/celebrities/pictures/CarmenElectra/nude/carmen_electra_028.jpg
Post a Comment