r/rem

This month iiiiiis Collapse into now.

Been an REM fan for three and a half decades and it was really only listening back to the albums alongside the Scotts and the Big mates (voyage of discovery not being seeking new lands, but seeing with new eyes) that I came to appreciate CiN

I'm still not a fan of the start/end of the album (discoverer is okay, but did sound better/stompier/monsteryier in that live session - blue adds nothing to E-bow/CF)

But UBerlin, Alligator_aviator are top notch and many of the collaborations on the album add a depth /flourish that is somewhat overlooked by the narrative that it ended up as an alternative 'best of'.

Growers, for me, were Oh my heart, and walk it back.

I love the idea that "That someone is you" is a tribute from Stipe to Buck recognising the impact of that initial musical pairing and enjoy that song and all the best a lot.

Biggest frustration (and possibly sign the well was running dry is Mine smell like honey - which throws a great song away with awful lyrics)

Looking at the slate of songs on this album I'm surprised when it sporadically gets mooted as their worst. I think it's a nifty bookend to their career and it's nice that they got Patti and Lenny involved.

If they'd wrapped up with Electrolyte it would have left a pretty much flawless body of work, but would have robbed many people of the chance of seeing them play live in a configuration that really excelled, and would have meant the loss of absolute classics like 'Walk unafraid', 'I've been high' 'living well's the best revenge' or the joy of the Dublin this is not a shows.

So, while CiN is probably only their 13th/14th best album, I do think it's unfairly overlooked and includes at least 3 or 4 songs which would stand up against anything in their catalogue.

I heard it was Bill but it kinda sounds like it might be Mike or just Michael doing an overdub which would make sense cause they never do that part live. I have a similar question on who sung the response parts in Sidewinder as well

We All Have Cellphones (So C’mon Let’s Get Real) is one of the best deep cuts, we can all agree on this, right?

After all the recent discussions of favourite songs etc. from various albums, I felt like just listening to all their albums in succession over a weekend, no skipping, just the whole oeuvre in chronological order. In Spotify, the 15 studio albums (plus Chronic Town) amounted to around 12 hours.I hadn't included The Great Beyond or the 3 songs from Part Truth etc. yet.

I'd love to get everyone's take of which songs that aren't on the original releases you'd wedge in between the albums (worthy B-sides, releases on compilation albums etc.) and where.