We are hope despite the times -1986 R.E.M.

[underpants]

[mr_lebowski]

1. The very first cassette I bought upon arriving at 'College' on the CA Central Coast, circa 1986

To this day my favorite REM album in totality, with Murmur a very close second, followed by Reckoning, then Fables.

IRS REM FTW ... the soundtrack of friggin' college (I was a JC transfer so college started earlier, as did my love for REM, but LRP came out JUST when I moved down) ... I love that I got to 'live their career', all as it was coming out. Same with U2, man. Feel like I grew up with those lads.

Hey, you ever feel like you really were THERE, right time, right place, through a lot of your life?

I tell ya what if you're a rock fan and were born 1960-70, while you missed SOME really great earlier stuff ... most of it lived on and stayed very relevant in your formative years ... you were just the right age for SO MUCH great stuff that was happening in music over the decades of 1970-2010. I'm not saying older folks didn't get to hear even more, but chances are if you were >30 when, say, grunge hit in 1991, you probably were a little bit put off by it at the time ... not everyone of course, but ... I really feel like the people from 1965-1972 ... were of the age that whatever was happening 'at the time' for a REALLY long stretch ... felt like 'well, this is in my wheelhouse ...'

I don't think that 'feeling' started ending for a lot of us until at least about 2005, maybe 2010. At least, not for me. I felt up until that point that I could dig on whatever's cool in rock, then later, alt rock and alt country ... all throughout those days.

When I think of how I started loving the 'popular rock of my time' starting around when Elton John Honky Chateau came out and I was a 7-ish boy who knew how to use dad's record changer, with his heathkit amp and shure headphones ... and then continued to feel like the music of the day was relevant to me for at least the next 30 years ...

Think about it ... from our formative years onward ... it went Beatles & CCR & Dylan & Carole King & Elton ... to Billy Joel, Steve Miller, Seger, Yes, Boston, KI$$, Aerosmith, Scorpions/Priest/Sabbath/Ozzy/Dio, The Ramones, Prince, The Boss, Madonna, Talking Heads, U2, Violent Femmes, New Order, Depeche Mode, REM, The Smiths, The Cure, The Beastie Boys, Indigo Girls, RHCP, Metallica, Jane's Addiction, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Uncle Tupelo, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Steve Earle, Beck, Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Counting Crows, Wilco, Spoon, Drive-By Truckers, Queens of the Stone Age, My Morning Jacket, LCD Soundsystem ...

And really there's still some great bands coming out even recently, you maybe have to search 'off the airwaves' a bit to find some of them .. The War on Drugs for example are relatively new, and fantastic. Sturgill Simpson is a great new artist ... just to name a few...

It was a damn good run there for our particular generation ... as long as you didn't 'get old' ... lol ...

[AJT]

2. I had forgotten how many concerts I had gone to anf

how many albums, tapes, CDs I had bought over the years.

[cab67]

3. I put Fables at the top of the list

But this was a huge part of my college soundtrack.

[mr_lebowski]

5. I wouldn't argue AGAINST any of the first 4 ... or even Document ...

Hell, I might even accept the dead letter office/chronic town CD as an answer which is kinda cheating, but ... yeah that opening salvo at IRS was just ... the shizz. Always amazed me how fully-formed they seemed right from the opening notes of Murmur.

Fables is probably their most adventurous, abstract, and most Southern Gothic, outing. I love love Kahoutek, Life and How to Live It, Gravity's pull, and of course Wendell Gee ... arguably their best closer apart from Find the River.

They emerged much like U2 with Boy, October, War, Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree ... both bands were creating a sonic template that had never been quite been done before.

[cab67]

7. I still haven't forgiven them for Green.

[mr_lebowski]

8. Not my fave of their's by any stretch but still better than most albums ... rescued IMHO by 3 great

Tracks, to whit:
You Are the Everything (which I played and sang at my brothers wedding)
Hairshirt (to these ears, tied for Michael's best vocal performance with Nightswimming)
World Leader Pretend

I also like the Untitled closer & I Remember California okay.

And every now and then I can rock out to the painfully repetitive and banal 'Turn You Inside Out', mainly cause do like Peter's guitar tone on that song.

But yeah, their least great album overall, at least prior to Berry leaving.

I actually quite liked their 'farewell' album 'Collapse Into Now', I think it's their best since New Adventures (their last truly great album, IMHO). Pretty good 'roundup' of their styles ... nothing on it exceeds the 'originals' of what they're doing on it but still pretty much 'like' ... every song. And a few I REALLY like.

Also, I really really like the song Mr. Richards from Accelerate, which also had it's charms ... songs 4-8 actually I liked quite a bit, and I been known to rock out to Man Sized Wreath ... pretty damn catchy track.

[Dulcinea]

4. One of my favorite songs ever!

Lifes Rich Pageant is my favorite REM album.

"...Carry each his burden
We are young despite the years we are concern
We are hope despite the times
All of a sudden, these days
Happy throngs, take this joy wherever, wherever you go."

[mr_lebowski]

6. The whole opening salvo of Begin the Begin to Cuyahoga is just drop dead awesome ...

and every other song is good-to-great that follows, in particular (imho) Flowers, I Believe, and Swan Swan H.

Of course when there's a good IRS/REM discussion going on, I have to post this ... The Decemberists with Peter Buck on guitar from a few years back ... sooooooo IRS REM.

I love the beginning of the 2nd verse it goes:

"Heddie Green, Queen of Supply-Side Bon Amie Bone Drab ... you know what I mean?" ... it's SO dead on Michael, c. 1985.

The entire album's freakin' great, btw ...