REM - The Great Beyond

"I'm pushing an Elephant up the stairs"

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VoR

VoR

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Their highest-charting UK hit (and arguably their last really significant one) and the theme from Man On The Moon. I love this song. It builds up magnificently.

 
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As far as fans go, I'm an extremely casual one but this is my favourite song of theirs. I can't listen to it too often though.
 
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It's not really one of my favourites of theirs, but it's still by their standards a pretty solid single. I didn't realise it's nearly 12 years since it was released. :o
 
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Amazing. So glad it was a big hit as was deserved. The "I'm breaking through I'm ending spoons" bit is lovely .
Definite top ten of theirs for me.
 
*bump*

I loved this.

I generally subscribe to the view that REM ruined it by dragging it out for too long but I date the decline from after "Reveal" unlike most people who tend to date it as either starting with "Monster" or with Bill Berry leaving.
 
I was listening to this a lot today in my fragile late-stage hangover state. Such a lovely song.
 
octophone said:
*bump*

I loved this.

I generally subscribe to the view that REM ruined it by dragging it out for too long but I date the decline from after "Reveal" unlike most people who tend to date it as either starting with "Monster" or with Bill Berry leaving.
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Oh I loved Monster. They really did fade away didn't they?
 
Quick REM top 5

1. The Great Beyond
2. Try Not To Breathe
3. Man on the Moon
4. Nightswimming
5. Drive

I need to listen to more of their albums.
 
Another Quick REM Top 5

1 - The Wrong Child
2 - Country Feedback
3 - Parakeet
4 - New Test Leper
5 - The Great Beyond

VoR - hit up "Green", "New Adventures In Hi-Fi", "Lifes Rich Pageant" (if you can bear the lack of an apostrophe in the title) and "Up".
 
I had no idea this was their highest charting UK hit. I'd figured Shiny Happy People or something had gone to #1.
 
Listening to this again just now..it really is immaculate, like a little pearl.

As a rule, the quality of an REM album was dictated by how many of its songs had that indefinable "thing" that only they could do. You know the kind of songs I mean; Country Feedback, E-Bow The Letter, World Leader Pretend, The Lifting, Welcome To The Occupation, Nightswimming, Parakeet, New Test Leper....this is one of those songs. There's nothing particularly experimental about it but you could be listening to no-one else almost immediately.
 
octophone said:
I generally subscribe to the view that REM ruined it by dragging it out for too long but I date the decline from after "Reveal" unlike most people who tend to date it as either starting with "Monster" or with Bill Berry leaving.
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What an (unsurprisingly) excellent take! I hate how the R.E.M. fans that I've encountered in life can generally be divided into two camps: the Gen X Americans who refuse to acknowledge anything after the IRS years, and like, the rest of the world which was on board from Green through Automatic, got spooked by Monster, and subsequently ignored the fact that they remained brilliant for half a decade afterwards. They were in the mix amongst the best bands in the world for twenty. years. which is an absolutely insane run (I think they dipped a fair bit between 87 and 91, but that's just me). I find it baffling that their legacy seems to have dwindled post-retirement given how influential they were on what came after. I hope they receive some sort of collective reappraisal soon.

As for 'The Great Beyond' - it's lovely, yes, but there are at least fifty R.E.M. songs I much prefer, probably even more. I'm glad it gave them a hit, though, and I vaguely recall liking it more at the time. Listening to it again makes me want to listen to 'Man on the Moon' instead!
 
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The thing REM suffer from in 2024 is this: the thing that they coined became commonplace. It's very difficult to ask people to understand how unlike anything else REM sounded for long periods of their career. Even at their commercial peak, Losing My Religion was an incredibly unlikely megahit in 1991's landscape. Automatic...is an extended treatise on death and it sold 17-18 million copies. In the way that what Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin did for the voice became the norm, what REM did for voice/guitar/bass and drums (with a bit of multitasking) became standard. This renders what was thrillingly unusual in 1988 rather normal in 2024.

I know that What Is Music? are having their most successful season to date covering REM so there is still an audience out there.
 
I wonder also if they're not viewed as very passé by the millennial crowd. Out of Time and Automatic for the People felt like they were on every 'greatest albums' list when I was growing up, and the band themselves felt very 'establishment'. Also, they kept going for over a decade longer than they needed to, so a lot of us didn't experience the jangly, inscrutably-gorgeous gems of early R.E.M. or the sonic daring of post-Automatic R.E.M. firsthand. We just got creative bankruptcy and diminishing returns. A band that all the music critics said were great, but whose contemporary material suggested otherwise. (The first album of theirs that I bought on the day of release was bloody Around the Sun. Typical that when I decide that I really like a band they decide to go to shit!) Doesn't help that their biggest hits, as much as I love most of them, are not really representative of who they are.

Anyway, I am hungover as hell (it is a public holiday here), so I have pretty much stayed in bed all day and embarked on a voyage of rediscovery when it comes to R.E.M. - I think the last time I listened to them properly must have been several years ago - and I have concluded that they must be one of the greatest bands evah. I think I knew this already but conveniently forgot, so I'm grateful that this thread has rekindled that love!

I decided to throw every good song of theirs onto a playlist and I have 'The Great Beyond' provisionally sitting at 91, LOL. Which is not to slight a really good song, it's more a testament to the fact that their quality and consistency from Murmur (actually Chronic Town) through to Reveal is absolutely nuts.
 
Nightswimming is my R.E.M. #1 but this, Imitation Of Life and Man On The Moon would fight it out to be #2
 
If I was allowed one REM song on the desert island, it would probably be At My Most Beautiful. But there's no single REM song that shows all their sides. Which is the delight of the thing, really.
 
My first real-time REM album was Green. I remember getting Around The Sun home, plopping it on and being like, what is this SHIT? :D
 
Marilyn said:
Nightswimming is my R.E.M. #1 but this, Imitation Of Life and Man On The Moon would fight it out to be #2
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Imitation Of Life is the song of theirs that I'm most inclined to forget, then be blown away by the beauty of it when I remember it.
 
I wonder if the fact that they completely stopped recording around 15 years ago has made it easier for them to fall out of the public consciousness? Even a string of legacy tarnishing duds keeps you visible, especially if you tour constantly. (Green Day and U2 both spring to mind...)
 
Imitation Of Life really felt like an event - it was such a brilliant single and very *them*. I remember them doing it on TV, probably Top Of The Pops, maybe Later, maybe both and when Stipe hit the high note in the chorus, the shivers just rattling down the ol' spine.
 
VoR said:
I wonder if the fact that they completely stopped recording around 15 years ago has made it easier for them to fall out of the public consciousness? Even a string of legacy tarnishing duds keeps you visible, especially if you tour constantly. (Green Day and U2 both spring to mind...)
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Well, they broke up in the traditional way. They've kept the reissues coming, some better than others but, yes, without something high profile like a tour, there's the room to become a fringe concern.

It'll come round. The Beatles were passe more than once.
 
I was around 10 or 11 when I first encountered them and I thought they sounded so radical compared to what I was typically listening to on the radio.
 
Around The Sun is not a very exciting album, but I still think Leaving New York is an excellent song and I love the Michael vocals layered over each other.
 
octophone said:
If I was allowed one REM song on the desert island, it would probably be At My Most Beautiful. But there's no single REM song that shows all their sides. Which is the delight of the thing, really.
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Omg, another that would place the eternally-underrated 'At My Most Beautiful' at number one? I thought I was the only one in the world!!

I apologise for being rather imprudent, but at this stage it seems self-evident that we should get married and make beautiful babies. Except kids are awful and I'm not sure I believe in marriage, so maybe let's sponsor an orphan rhino with both our names on the paper instead?! :disco:

FetchFugly said:
Around The Sun is not a very exciting album, but I still think Leaving New York is an excellent song and I love the Michael vocals layered over each other.
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Co-sign! One of the reasons why Around the Sun was such a disappointment for me was precisely because 'Leaving New York' led to somewhat warped expectations (though it's another of theirs that I liked much more at the time - I've got it sitting at 66 today :david:). And the band's vocal layering/interplay/harmonising = absolutely dreamy, even from the very beginning of their career imo. <3
 
old spice said:
I apologise for being rather imprudent, but at this stage it seems self-evident that we should get married and make beautiful babies. Except kids are awful and I'm not sure I believe in marriage, so maybe let's sponsor an orphan rhino with both our names on the paper instead?! :disco:
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This is Moopy, it would have to be a liger, otherwise @Dadude003 would never forgive us.
 
Wasn't sure where to place this so in the absence of a general R.E.M. thread I'm resurrecting this topic because:



I'm a bit late on this but here are all four band members on stage again in Athens, Georgia!!! I damn near lost my mind and went through ALL the feels: omg much excite! I fucking love 'Pretty Persuasion'! But when did they all get so old! Wait when did I get so old! Fuck it this is beautiful I have cry!

Apparently Michael Shannon has been out there touring in an R.E.M. covers band which is delightfully bonkers to me. They've been playing the early albums in their entirety, and I think I'd pay to see them perform Murmur or Lifes Rich Pageant cos they actually seem pretty decent. Was pleased to see both those albums feature highly in this recent ranking of their records as well, though the perennial underappreciation of Up (possibly my #1) continues to irk me. Nice to see some love for it in the comments, hopefully the tide will continue to turn on that one.
 
I love that they're all friends. There are few things more unedifying than bands sniping at each other after a split. That interview the 4 of them did last year was very telling in terms of the dynamic but their love and respect for each other was clear. A few people commented that Peter Buck seemed grumpy and uncomfortable but that is literally just Peter Buck being interviewed on camera and we can see this from 1981 onwards!
 
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