If I read this correctly, Barry has put three songs from albums he's not on in his ten choices, very cool. Also The Bear is insanely good this season, as if it wasn't already a high bar for this show.
This band are my no 1 wish I had seen live. Been listening to them for 25 years. Got into them during the press for Up. Enjoy all the IRS (pre Green) stuff. Out of Time through to New Adventures in HiFi are all brilliant - yes most albums contain a couple of tracks that are a bit iffy and have an outsized impact on their passing reputation (Shiny Happy People, Everybody Hurts) but there are no bands like them. Even the latter couple of albums are fairly consistent. I actually think they are underappreciated in current times such is the strength and uniqueness of their catalogue Michael Stipe is just brilliant. So pleased to see them getting a boost with the Bear.
They just pressed Around the Sun and Collapse Into Now on vinyl and I grabbed both of them. Really been enjoying those. Accelerate and Reveal coming this fall.
It’s a weird one, for sure. But there are some great tracks on there. At My Most Beautiful is amazing
I've just generally come to appreciate how much I like their later material recently. A bunch of underrated albums.
every single REM album has some worthwhile songs on it and most of the latter years are underrated I like Up the least, but it has a handful of good tunes
New Adventures is a very close second behind Automatic for me for favorite album of theirs. Hell, I consider it one of my all-time favorite albums, period. So many amazing tracks that perfectly capture every era of the band. I’ll never bore of listening to it. Although, I don’t usually affiliate that album with their later work. For me it’s Up and everything after
Fair, but I consider Monster the last of their run on top of the world so to me everything after that is latter era. But you’re not wrong
I know it’s not the popular take, but I go back to their ‘90s and 2000s work so much more than their ‘80s albums. I don’t know if it’s because I lived through that period of the band and therefore have some nostalgic appreciation for all those albums, or if I generally find their sound more interesting as they went along, but I definitely reach for, like, New Adventures a lot more than I reach for Murmur.
theres days New American is my favorite of theirs, I think Lifes Rich Pageant is my favorite overall though.
I had to look up the dates when they toured with 10,000 maniacs (1989) - Natalie Merchant came out to sing a song with REM, and Michael Stipe came out to sing a song with them. Lifes Rich Pageant was one of my first cassettes, and the next 2 tapes for Document and Green are the trinity for me, similar to Weezers Blue, Green, and Pinkerton.