r/rem

Honestly this one is a late late july early August hazy thing. For me, it’s the time of year where summer is wearing thin, the heat is unbearable, and the novelty has worn off. Some interesting moments, but like Summer, it prattles on, and should wrap it up

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We all know the crazy amount of Monster CD’s that could be found at thrift stores/used record stores. But why? I understand Monster may be not as good as their prior 8 albums (what a run), but why are there SO MANY!? I literally saw a stack of 15 monsters at a record store the other day. Was it on sale upon release? Did people really not like it that much? I always find it pretty interesting.

Happy birthday Reveal! 😔

On the anniversaries of the previous 11 albums, R.E.M. HQ released collections of merchandise and special re-issues often including demos, live shows, and other fun treats for fans.

At least recently, those re-issues were usually announced a few weeks before they dropped. But as the countdown to Reveal's 25th continued, we had... nothing.

It really is too bad. I enjoyed hearing the band member's retrospective thoughts on the albums in the interviews they would do, and loyally collected the box sets. Maybe they just weren't selling well enough. But it seems weird to me that they're stopping at Reveal. I thought they'd either stop at Up, the beginning of the controversial later years, or Around The Sun, for obvious reasons. I feel like Reveal is well-liked by a solid portion of the fan base and the band alike!

Edit: You all have encouraged me! Hope isn't dead until the year hits 2027!

A note on this upload:
This is a test upload for quality. It was upscaled as the original was shot on SD TV equipment, so there's no film to scan to get an authentic 4k version of it. In the past, I've received some vocal criticism from a minority of users (source: upvote to downvote ratio hovers around 20 upvotes to 1 downvote, happy to share screenshots if people think I'm inventing this stat)... arguing that this is a disservice to the artist. The resize models are trained cleverly with SD and known authentically HD frames from the same content, and the model builds a more statistically intelligent way to fill in the missing inbetween pixels, better than the simplistic way the fullscreen button in web browsers also does this. But it does mean that it visual mistakes. I have bailed on projects that simply didn't work, like Nirvana's Come As You Are (the resize algorithms on the the water effect in front of the band was hilariously bad).

So my question is this:
I've done 2/3rds of this set, but noticed some artifacts that put me on the edge of flunking this video. Do you prefer this fullscreen version, or do you prefer the fullscreen version for the original (linked here: https://youtu.be/t5SDXbHuSpE?t=1306 )? In other words, do you prefer predictable blocky artifacts, or do you choose a version like mine that statistically more correct but the incorrect portions are pretty noticeable when they happen? Please add detail and remember that this is my hobby, I look for art to get claimed by the rightful owners. I do want to do right by the fans (I've been an REM fan since 1988) and don't wish to disrespect people's memory of this, but also recognize that we all sit in front of screens that are vastly more capable than TVs in the 1990s, and want to provide a reasonable non-distracting version of this video.

Let me know... gently please, as I'm a human with honest to god emotions. Some have been polite, but I've been yelled at pretty ugly and had my work called slop as if it's ChatGPT generating an image from a single sentence, which steals from artists and is bad for the environment. If I'm doing slop, I'll be honest about it, but I politely disagree that this is any more slop than the fullscreen button on youtube. If you don't like that, I respect that as a reasonable opinion, but if you can't say it respectfully, then just a quiet thumbs-down is just as valuable and noticeable for me. TIA

Now I'm fully aware this is a controversial opinion but I really think they are fantastically consistent records. Yes AFTP is fantastic but it probably has more songs I'm not into than either of those such as ignoreland and sidewinder, although the highs of the record are extremely high. OOT is very similar in that regard and New Adventures would be an all timer of an 11 song record. But Monster and Up are pretty much all good and the only song on Up I'm not really down with is At my most beautiful and Monster probably king of comedy but I still don't mind it. Also I love to hear the band trying different things and both those records definitely tick those boxes

I got a hat the size of OooOOOOoklahoma

For example mine is I hate Finest Work song. yea I said it, bite me. I think its boring, the lyrics are trash, and instrument's sound ugly and just everything sucks.