#122

Yes… Quite right!

#123

You Are the Everything
Strange Currencies

#124

Really hard to pick but I’d have to include ‘Pretty Persuasion’, ‘Strange Currencies’ and ‘At My Most Beautiful’.

#125

One of the truly great bands, always interesting through obscurity and peak fame.

Find myself rinsing them every couple of months.

So hard to call a favourite song but today it’s “Laughing”

#126

That’s amazing, what was the plot? I was getting really into them when I was 15-16 and somehow decided it would be fun to include obtuse references to multiple R.E.M. songs in my GCSE English exam

#127

Would be hard to argue they’re not my favourite band given how much I’ve listened to them over the years and how much they’ve shaped my music taste.

E-Bow The Letter was the song that made me realise they were amazing rather than just good.

Saw them at Hyde Park in 2005 and Twickenham in 2008, really close to the front both times. Two of the most memorable gigs of my life.

#128

The book It Crawled From The South is a pretty cool document of their early-mid career if anyone’s into that kind of thing

#129

the green tour did it for me
was a casual fan beforehand & by the time they got to king of birds during the first encore I knew that was it for me, caught them on the cusp of really exploding

according to setlist.fm the [I]second[/I] encore was this
Harpers (Hugo Largo cover)
Summertime (George Gershwin cover)
Begin the Begin
Hairshirt
Perfect Circle
Dark Globe (Syd Barrett cover)
After Hours (The Velvet Underground cover)
but several of those were brief snatches of the songs

if you’ve not seen the green world tour film, do yourselves a favour & watch it

#130

Agreed - this is a brilliant guide through the IRS and early Warner Bros. years. A great read.

#131

Lot of love for Dead Letter Office. I know there’s some tod on there, but I’m big fan of their early jangle. Plus Chronic Town.

One of those bands where I’ve not heard a fair bit of what they’ve put out, but love pretty much everything I do know.

#132

A girl is isolated by people in her everyday life, finds solace on the internet where she meets someone who eventually murders her (all to the tunes of New Adventures in Hi Fi, particularly Leave)
It wasn’t the best :smile:

#133

Happy birthday to Automatic For The People!

25 years old yesterday. Currently giving it a good blast.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/rems-automatic-for-the-people-10-little-known-facts-w506967

4 Likes
#134

I love song exploder yet completely forgot of its existence over the past few months for some reason. It came as a great surprise to see an episode uploaded just before Christmas with Stipe and Mills talking about the writing process of Try Not to Breathe.

Obviously it was absolutely a fantastic listen http://songexploder.net/rem

2 Likes
#135

“Try Not to Breathe” is a “deep cut” on an album that is full of standouts, and that I would say is mostly better in the second half than the first half. Interesting that they commenced that album intending to do more rock songs, and ended up with an album of mostly ballads - the only real rockers are “Sidewinder” and “Ignoreland”, and perhaps “Man on the Moon” in a soft-rock kind of way.

Until I looked up the lyrics to Sidewinder I had no idea why they were singing “call me in Jamaica… call me in Jamaica…”. :smiley:

#136

Not enough yeahs in this thread.

1 Like
#137

Anybody remember reading a sci-fi book where creatures jump the barricades while running towards the sea. It’s in the lyrics of Belong and I’ve found one reference to it on the internet but am still none the wiser.

#138

Even thinking about that song is making me well up. Any info would be welcome!

#139

This.

Saw that this version is on Spotify now too but can’t remember what album or b side or whatever.

Fucking love R.E.M.

3 Likes
#140

Where’s the internet reference? I have read a lot of sci-fi, but can’t recall a story that precisely fits this.

#141

http://www.ggsapocalypse.co.uk/music-for-the-apocalypse-48-belong-by-rem/

Someone mentioned it here. I was a child of the late 70s / early 80s so no later than that…