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Posted by pamsterdam on 2008-03-10 05:26:04 +0000

This is where I started falling out of love with REM, so I haven't actually listened to this album (or its tracks) for many years.

The madrigal-like Try Not To Breathe holds up well, of course the falsetto at the start of Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite (which I remember as my favorite track) still charms, Everybody Hurts was good but made me go back and listen to Rock'n'Roll Suicide more, Man On The Moon makes me smile despite being overplayed all to hell, and Nightswimming is pure nostalgia (for something I never did). The rest - sadly - annoys me as much now as it did then.

I guess overall it seems way too polished and layered - like Jeff Lynne got ahold of their tapes - and at the time, musically, I felt they were moving in a different direction than I was. This was the year I got hoodwinked into taking over the Indie 500 show at WUNH, I started listening to more American punk and post-punk (previously I'd been a real Anglo-snob on the subject), and I wasn't really interested in Hammond organ ballads. Peter Buck started getting arrested for getting drunk and assaulting stewardesses with yogurt and after that I had a hard time differentiating REM from any other mainstream rock band.

I hope you're hanging in there with Restaurant Week, do8.

Posted by dyedon8 on 2008-03-10 05:33:39 +0000

It started tonight. I'm doing okay.

Posted by tommy on 2008-03-10 15:50:20 +0000

I see this album much differently than pamsterdam. I think this is R.E.M.'s best record. I think they really needed to change directions a bit, after the letdown of Out of Time, and was happy with what they chose to do here.

Perhaps "Drive" and "Ignoreland" are missteps, but not anywhere near as bad as "Radio Song" was. They don't drag the rest of the album down.

The rest of this album is uniformly terrific. "Man on the Moon" and "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" are both playful, but they're not just jokes or throwaways. They're great songs that hold up to repeated listens (and I've been listening to this album at least a couple times a month since 1992).

I think some see "Everybody Hurts" as overly sentimental, but I think it and "Sweetness Follows" are totally effective -- great songs with great songwriting. They are sad, but also confirming, and hopeful. The video for "Everybody Hurts" gets me every time (although the news report at the end ruins it).

"Nightswimming" is definitely pure nostalgia, but for something that I did -- some of my favorite memories, in fact -- so I love this song. Pamsterdam, hop in your time machine, and meet us at Walden Pond, or Darren T's backyard pool, circa 1989!

"Find the River" is maybe R.E.M.'s most beautiful song. It's a great closer for this album. This is, in my opinion, R.E.M.'s last really good record. So, in a sense this song is a closer for the band's best years. I don't think they could have picked a better song to "sign off" with.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2008-03-10 15:56:28 +0000

Aw, Tommy - your enthusiasm's catching. And I'd dearly love to go back to '89 and not be the terrified Morrissey fan that I was, shivering on the banks of Oyster River in my one-peice bathing suit while my friends skinny-dipped and formed memories to be awakened a few years later by Nightswimming. That might've made all the difference.

I'll give it another few listens. After all, you are pretty much right about things.