Vinyl Me Please Essentials

The reason R.E.M. are really popular is because they are really good. Their early stuff has nice mystery to it but they keep a questing spirit throughout their career. One of rock’s best discographies.


But Monster is getting a wide (and easily affordable) reissue everywhere so I have no need for a VMP version in ‘exclusive orange vinyl with a tip-on jacket and exclusive art print’ for double the price of the regular reissue.
mmmmmm I think that’s why it won’t be the Essentials ROTM - because it’s getting a wide reissue!

I really want another clue! I want to know if R.E.M. is still in the running or not to be the Essentials ROTM 😂
 
R.E.M.’s music reminds me too much of the forklift drivers at the factories I’ve worked at: men that have no fashion taste, eat frozen meals/just buy sausage rolls or pies on their work break and they would never be vegan. And also, they’re a bit patriotic and love placing a good multi-bet and they just know the suburban life. Like they enjoy social gambling and drinking cheap beer. But they’re still nice men 😅

I really hope the Essentials ROTM is something that is not similar to that aesthetic 🙇‍♂️

That impression is about as off as possible about REM. They were a Left of the Dial band.
 
That impression is about as off as possible about REM. They were a Left of the Dial band.
I think it’s because I don’t know much better. “Orange Crush” and “Losing My Religion” would play on the work radio and most of the workers love that kind of music. And I don’t know, when I hear those songs, I just think of those workers instantly.

I’m so unfamiliar with rock, so I guess my characterisation would be really bad and narrow minded 🙈
 
I think it’s because I don’t know much better. “Orange Crush” and “Losing My Religion” would play on the work radio and most of the workers love that kind of music. And I don’t know, when I hear those songs, I just think of those workers instantly.

I’m so unfamiliar with rock, so I guess my characterisation would be really bad and narrow minded 🙈
Go listen to So. Central Rain or Radio Free Europe or Fall on Me or Begin the Begin or Leave.

*Edit* listen to them all
 
I think it’s because I don’t know much better. “Orange Crush” and “Losing My Religion” would play on the work radio and most of the workers love that kind of music. And I don’t know, when I hear those songs, I just think of those workers instantly.

I’m so unfamiliar with rock, so I guess my characterisation would be really bad and narrow minded 🙈

R.E.M. are worth giving a go chronologically to experience the twists and turns their career goes to. Monster isn’t the best place to start by any means but the fact a strange little band from Athens G.A. got to be so big is that their work speaks to a lot of people. R.E.M. are so commonly accepted as a good band it is easy to forget how wonderful and awe inspiring they can be. It’s a bit like Clouds, something we accept as lovely but don’t realise how special they are until we look into the sky and don’t see them hovering
 
I think it’s because I don’t know much better. “Orange Crush” and “Losing My Religion” would play on the work radio and most of the workers love that kind of music. And I don’t know, when I hear those songs, I just think of those workers instantly.

I’m so unfamiliar with rock, so I guess my characterisation would be really bad and narrow minded 🙈
Check out the Chronic Town EP.

 
Murmer, Reckoning and Fables is an amazing Triple Play run of albums. If Chronic Town was not an ep I would give them a Grand Slam. Pagent was good but not great to me. To my punk rock ears Document was such a blatant attempt to jump from the College rock circuit Arena Rock
While I agree the first three albums are great, when I reach for an early R.E.M. album it's usually Pageant.
 
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