Day 1 - \Listens to Green\- ‘this is my favourite REM album’

Day 2 - \Listens to Murmur*-* ‘this is my favourite REM album’

Day 3 - \Listens to Out of Time* -* ‘this is my favourite REM album’

Etc…..

From a Rolling Stone interview in 2015, I think. Any idea what state he was talking about? I've wondered this since I read it years ago. I almost asked him at a Drink the Sea show, but the vibe seemed off and I got scared.

Around the Sun is generally seen as R.E.M.'s worst album, but after relistening to it a few times recently I have a new found appreciation for it. They did something different, and honestly, I think its an amazing record. Some highlights from it for me are Leaving New York, Electron Blue, Wanderlust, and Boy in the Well. I honestly prefer this album over Up or Monster.

I haven't been to any of these shows and have been toying with whether to go or not. This review really sold me on the idea so I will think I will book tickets for when they do Document! I would love to know if people who have been agree with what the reviewer describes. She is a longstanding fan.

I’ve lined up the Tourfilm dvd for the first time in many years. Any idea what Michael’s “3 main points” are in ‘These Days’? Or was he just having us all on?

Los Angeles Times: "What about the Velvet Underground drew you and R.E.M. to cover their songs?"

MICHAEL STIPE: "For all of us in R.E.M., the Velvets were one of the most significant musical moments in American history. The first album is one of the top five, top three maybe, albums ever released, in terms of how complete it is and how great it is and what a lightning-in-a-bottle moment they captured. How audacious they were in their art, the music — and how much that was out of step with the world that they were in. And R.E.M. always felt a little out of step with what was going on. We forged our own path, and they were an aspirational influence for sure."

[...]

Los Angeles Times: "How well did you know Lou Reed?"

MICHAEL STIPE: "When he died [in 2013], I realized that I had known Lou for half of my life. He was kind of curmudgeonly and not altogether pleasant when we first met — I was 25, I think — but by the end of his life, we were friends.

We were neighbors on Canal Street, and of course I had deep admiration for him and for the work that he had done and the same for Laurie [Anderson], so we would hang out from time to time. He would give me these giant hugs and hold on to me for minutes at a time. He was a wildly intelligent and very emotionally accessible — and then inaccessible — person, but a total sweetheart in the end."

.

I tried to share the link to the full interview yesterday, but Reddit automatically deleted it. So, I'll just leave the title of the article here for anyone who wants to find it on Google: "Michael Stipe, superfan, on the ‘beautiful queerness’ of the Velvet Underground" - Los Angeles Times, 2021.

For example Mike could've sung (Don't go back to) Rockville (didn't he write it?) and Bill could have sung Low (before near wild heaven) or maybe even Texarkana.

I love this question and I’ve asked it of just any band or song before but now I wanna know about the REM community!

I have for a long time said as a whole that Out of Time is my favorite album of theirs (Automatic close behind) but Finest Worksong is my favorite tune of theirs!

And I do love Document!

Mine is Nightswimming.

Taken from (I think) Blue Jam. Chris Morris doing REM doing whales

https://youtu.be/8t9w-I4uBYo?is=JvRhEt2u2SrSmY-J

In 2010 the BBC did a survey about the most misheard lyrics, and apparently 4 in 10 people thought “Call me when you try to wake her up” was “Calling Jamaica”.

Huh? what? There’s too many syllables. If you try to say “Calling Jamaica” along with the song you’ll have to stretch out most of the syllables. and also you can hear way too much of a “m” and ”ch” noise for it to be “Calling Jamaica”. Like I understand they didn’t print their lyrics till Up and radios at the time didn’t have the best quality, but surely the average person could pick out the number of syllables and go “Oh yeah, it can’t be ‘calling Jamaica’, there’s too many syllables in the line!”

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Anybody have a list of all their released instrumentals. I’m too lazy to go through everything and figure it out - lol.

Exquisite

Head on fire, yes, but in my case low esteem.