Well said! The whole album is so tight (although Perfect Circle probably would have worked better on Out of Time or Automatic for the People). It was released a couple of years after I was born and has aged much better than I have.
I am a big REM fan, have been since 1995. The first listen of Murmur was unlike the first listen of any other of their albums. Although I don’t rank it as my favourite album, it is an astonishing debut.
Gonna have to be a be an R.E.M. pedant here, but Chronic Town came out in August 1982, nine months before the first Smiths single…
Oh no I’m glad you did, I thought they’d lifted the sound. Maybe it was just serendipity.
Vice versa, I doubt Chronic Town was well known enough in the UK for the Smiths to borrow its sound so quickly. So yeah, it probably was just serendipity.
And overall, I reckon R.E.M. are probably the greatest band to have ever existed.
When i first heard that song as a kid, I thought they were singing about Rochdale.
Arrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh we’ve been through this but it’s perfect!!!
Up and out of time are my favourites. Belong, near wild heaven and maybee heron house are today’s favourites but you can’t really choose can you?
(Belong is always no. 1 though)
Remember after they broke up (on my 20th birthday no less 
) that I had a full run through of the discography that was discussed on the old boards. My unconverted flatmates’ opinion of them that “they wrote the same song about 200 times”.
Still very good friends but what little respect I had for his musical taste went right out of the window (he doesn’t like anything released post-1970s other thank Pink Floyd members’ solo albums. He’s in his early twenties)
When they broke up Mogwai tweeted that they were the most overrated band over. I love Mogwai’s music but they’re clearly off their rockers.
As someone who isn’t really familiar with Mogwai’s work I can confirm that from the outside they come across as a bunch of chancers who spout blatantly wrong opinions to get a little publicity (see also: Blur are shite tshirts and their stint as Barry Hogan’s defence attorneys)
Not saying that they are. Just how it comes across
was having a conversation with a mate a few weeks back & he;'d never heard the MFSL version of murmur
it’s a completely different mix of the album, has much more of the kick drum/ bass on it, vocals are still hard to discern, but it’s well worth tracking down
This is great, especially as Stipe actually answered questions about the songs.
This is very good, though I disagree with them on Near Wild Heaven
not the biggest fan in the world but have occasional things i love
Funnily enough, I was listening to Accelerate while driving into work this morning and remembered what an odd record it was. I don’t get to it as often as many of their others as the CD has that annoying Warner Brothers copy protection on which means it never made it to my itunes. That and the fact that most other REM albums are better.
It’s the production that strikes me as weird about it - a garage rock record with big budget polish. As a result, the sound doesn’t quite work for me and I don’t really care for the guitar tone. Saying that till probably their best post-Up album. Some ok songs like Hollow Man and Until The Day Is Done, along with some stinkers like I’m Gonna DJ.
Huge amount of affection for Up given the Jools Holland special around the time of its release which I recorded on VHS and played to death as a kid. The creativity forced on them by losing Bill Berry helped push the record into different territory I think. Gorgeous record.
Maybe the greatest American rock band ever? Who else was so good so consistently for so long? My favourite records are the run from Lifes Rich Pageant through to Green, and then New Adventures, but there is brilliant stuff on every album (apart from Around The Sun, granted).