REM Split

indiewindy

Finally the "three legged dog" calls it a day, an amazing band in the 1980's and 1990's. They leave us with a number of stunning albums in their back catalogue

http://www.state.ie/33929-news/rem-split

donfers

the last album wasn't bad either although it sounded like a copy of the best tunes of their heyday, maybe they realised the inspiration was gone, at least we're going to get a few days of their songs on tv/radio which is no bad thing and many people will go back and replay some of their older albums and remember how great they were


what was the reason given for split though?

handsomecake

i dont know many who have a bad word to say about them.

love their stuff

G.K.

Devastated.

Now both of my favourite bands (Big Star ebing the other) have split this year.

BornToRun88

I'm saddened. I got into them big this year and was really looking to a time when they would tour:( They should have at least finished with a Farewell Tour.

lordgoat

BornToRun88 wrote: »

I'm saddened. I got into them big this year and was really looking to a time when they would tour:( They should have at least finished with a Farewell Tour.

No they shouldn't they can do whatever they want. Just as they always have.

Saddened by the news but understandable.

johnny_ultimate

A sad day for inoffensive background music

Nah, I joke: they had a good run of it, well past their creative peak. I wish 'em well.

Penfailed

They were brilliant at Slane in '95

BornToRun88

I wonder what they will do with themselves now?

scudzilla

BornToRun88 wrote: »

I wonder what they will do with themselves now?

Bum around for 2/3 years then make millions on a 'Reunion Tour'

BornToRun88

scudzilla wrote: »

Bum around for 2/3 years then make millions on a 'Reunion Tour'

With Bill Berry I hope;)

vicwatson

Dammmmmmmmn

It's on their official website -

http://remhq.com/news_story.php?id=1446

Rafa1977

Dont worry, they will be back in a few years doing a tour when millions of dollars are waved in their faces.

greenmachine88

The Great Beyond is a cool song as is Ebow the Letter as are many more of their songs

♥ Losing my religion

Rented Mule

Penfailed wrote: »

They were brilliant at Slane in '95

...yet already past their prime.

paulosham

Go to 17:50 for left of reckoning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRII5bABcys

Dangerous Man

After Up I kind of lost interest but their stuff up until then was excellent. Still, it's a shame they're splitting up but I think in the long run it's probably the best thing; you don't want to end up like the Rolling Stones (if they're serious about their music, that is.)

bullpost

Great band in their day.

Saw them in SFX in '84. Very fresh and different to anything else at the time.

Lost interest largely after Green but caught up with them again for New Adventures......

G.K.

Mills will have a solo career, he's said it himself.

Table Top Joe

My favourite band of all time by far,no one comes close imo,15 albums,most of them great,some good and only a couple weak(yet still containing flashes of genius)


Loved "Collapse Into Now",a fine album to call it a day with

Table Top Joe

1.Automatic For The People
2.Green
3.Murmer
4.Fables Of The Reconstruction
5.Collapse Into Now
6.Reveal
7.Reckoning
8.Lifes Rich Pagent
9.Up
10.Out Of Time
11.Document


The following were disappointments but had some crackin songs all the same(i know a lot of people who regard "New Adventures.."as their favourite and it has my favourite R.E.M song on it,"Electrolite" but i always thought it was a bit patchy )i love about half the songs on each
12.New Adentures In Hi Fi
13.Monster
14.Around The Sun
15.Accelerate

Josey Wales

Rented Mule wrote: »

...yet already past their prime.

Not quite. They still had New Adventures in Hi-Fi to come which in my opinion is not only their greatest album but the best I've ever listened to.

R.E.M. have been my favourite band since I started to listen to and buy music. I'm saddened by the news as I know I will never see them in concert again. I think I've seen them about 13 times but it was great every time. I would have loved a tour for Collapse Into Now.

IamtheWalrus

The band that stopped me listening to East 17 and ignite my love for alternative music. They had ran their course but their back catalogue is up there with the best of all time. Michael Stipe was always a hero of mine.

Saw them live a few times. One of my first live experiences was REM touring UP in Landsdowne Rd. I gace that gig absolutely everything and so did the band. I was so exhausted I nearly vomited outside the stadium.

Sad day but I'm happy to have grown up with REM.

JerryHandbag

Saddened by this & the fact I never saw them live. Their 80s albums are all fantastic, 90s onwards was a bit patchy IMO. Reveal (2001) was a return to form, didnt bother with their last few albums though I felt they had lost their spark, so in that sense maybe the time is right to call it a day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jSn7pOzFsg

Sad Professor

Sad news indeed. Although I find it hard to believe this is the end. As said above, they'll almost certainly be back.

mickeyboymel

Sad day indeed...really thought they might tour next year....glad I caught them live at their peak in Torrevieja Spain 27th May 2005....great memories.....thanks for the soundtrack to my adult life REM

WinstonOno

great band, michael stipe was the voice of a generation, peter buck wrote some of the most memorable rifts of our time. they may have petered out of late, but it shouldnt be forgotten what they contributed to music, they invented indie, they will be missed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDY2tUrSMLc

lordgoat

Table Top Joe wrote: »

1.Automatic For The People
2.Green
3.Murmer
4.Fables Of The Reconstruction
5.Collapse Into Now
6.Reveal
7.Reckoning
8.Lifes Rich Pagent
9.Up
10.Out Of Time
11.Document


The following were disappointments but had some crackin songs all the same(i know a lot of people who regard "New Adventures.."as their favourite and it has my favourite R.E.M song on it,"Electrolite" but i always thought it was a bit patchy )i love about half the songs on each
12.New Adentures In Hi Fi
13.Monster
14.Around The Sun
15.Accelerate

Monster is their best album and New adventures a close second. Christ that list of yours is so arseways! Automatic? poppy crap all imo of course.

orourkeda

whiny crappy people

Skerries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

IamtheWalrus

WinstonOno wrote: »

great band, michael stipe was the voice of a generation, peter buck wrote some of the most memorable rifts of our time. they may have petered out of late, but it shouldnt be forgotten what they contributed to music, they invented indie, they will be missed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDY2tUrSMLc

Not so sure about this track.. It's a Country Feedback II. The spoken lyrics arwe even spoken the same way Stipe used to perform Country Feedback live. I thought it was lazy of REM and convinced me they had come to the end of the road.

TankGuy

I'm delighted with the news for the reason that i think they were past there best. REM changed the way i listened to music or mybe i should say changed what i listened to music for. Got into REM after a friend played me Lifes Rich Pagent in 1989 just after the Green World Tour.

I have been a high fan since, i thought when they released Monster it was the start of the end, but then they released New Adventures and UP and both albums knocked me out.

They have released some "not to form" albums but i do think these albums would be albums any other band could only hope to release, REM just raised the bar so high for themselves. I also think that as four people they have created a better body of amazing songs than any other band ive ever heard.

I`m gonna go home and have an REM evening.

run_Forrest_run

TankGuy wrote: »

I`m gonna go home and have an REM evening.

I'm having a little REM day in work (headphones)..Automatic for the People...stunning.

Beanstalk

I'm really saddened by the news. They can split with their heads held high though, they always stuck to their own principals and done their own thing and that deserves a huge amount of respect.

For me, R.E.M were always a seasonal band. I could only listen to automatic for the people in the deepest depths of winter and I always love it, and i'd listen to green and out of time in the summer and so on. Lots of memories of periods of my life associated with listening to R.E.M. You will be sadly missed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx9br5ISRpo

loyatemu

lordgoat wrote: »

Monster is their best album and New adventures a close second. Christ that list of yours is so arseways! Automatic? poppy crap all imo of course.

They were my absolute favourite band in the early-90s - everything up to Automatic is superb.

Never liked Monster though - it seems like they deliberately wrote a "rock" album so they could go back on the road after not touring the 2 previous albums, it sounds forced as a result. Ditto the "live" half of New Adventures. I actually thought Up was surprisingly good but since then I've lost interest - right time for them to go IMO.

These days I find myself mostly going back to Murmur:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STKVCwP486I

nxbyveromdwjpg

Great that they recognised the end of the road ended it with dignity

Android 666

nm wrote: »

Great that they recognised the end of the road ended it with dignity

Agreed. Apart from brief flashes here and there nothing they made recently matched their 80s and 90s output. It's kind of nice to see a band bow out with grace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9eb4AONfsk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf6vCjtaV1k

maupat

'New Adventures in Hi-Fi' one of my all time favourite albums. Saw them a few years ago in Ardgillen Castle. Great gig, fantastic weather and spectacular views with the sea as the backdrop to the stage. Anyone else remember it?!

Their last album (Collapse Into Now) saw a return to the their late 80's/early 90's sound. Once the album was finished apparently there was a feeling of 'what next' in the camp. Although I will miss them on the music scene I'm glad to see them bow out with grace (as a previous poster said).

P.S., 'Electrolite' - my fave REM song

kc66

Android 666 wrote: »

One of my favourite songs ever, never actually saw the vid though.
Saw them at Slane and at Oxegen a few years ago. Great band but havent really been into them in years now.

ned rierson

saw some great gigs ( sfx, rds, marlay park, olympia ) some ****e ones ( landsdowne, point, slane ) . they were my favourite band from 84 - 95 and leave behind some great albums. at least peter will be able to concentrate on the minus 5 / baseball project

stinkle

sad to see the back of such a great band. I first got into them around '99 when I was watching Glastonbury on TV. Was about 14 then. Was aware of them before that but the performance blew me away and I became a bit of an REM nerd after that! Their music has been important in all aspects of my life ever since, and I feel a little sad that from now on they wont be a "current" band. Yesterday was a bit milestone in my life actually and it's seems weird now that it happened to be the day they announced the break up, as their songs have become inextricably linked with other events in my life.

One of the things I love about REM was discovering gems from their back catalogue that id either never heard before or disregarded when I was younger. I was still finding "new" fave songs until recently, no doubt that'll continue, but it's a great thing to say about their rich musical legacy. I was lucky enough to see them live 3 times, and each time they were fantastic (Marlay Park '03, The Point '05 and Twickenham '08). I always thought their live reputation wasn't as appreciated as it should be, especially when thier recent albums weren't as (critically) well received as the older stuff. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a reunion at some point in the future

Technocentral

Seen them a few times but the best was at the Olympia in 2007 for one of the nights of their "live rehearsal" of Accelerate, fantastic night, the atmosphere was electric.

quaalude

REM were the first band I ever saw live - saw them in the RDS, the Green tour, 1989, when I was 13. I was so excited I nearly fainted and had to go the St. John Ambulance - morto!

mosstin

lordgoat wrote: »

Monster is their best album and New adventures a close second. Christ that list of yours is so arseways! Automatic? poppy crap all imo of course.

Ooof, so wrong.....Drive, Try Not To Breathe, Nightswimming, Find The River, Star Me Kitten. I'm struggling in fact - Sidewinder apart - to find any poppy crap on it. Way off the mark.

indiewindy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CTav-2lCYs

My favourite rem song

InTheTrees

Why does any band that old have to "break up" at all?

I'm sure they all live separate lives at this point.

Come together every five years or so to do a nostalgia tour and who cares if they're "together" or "broken up"?

Did led zeppelin ever break up and who cares anyway?

G.K.

Lifes Rich Pageant's my favourite album.

lordgoat

mosstin wrote: »

Ooof, so wrong.....Drive, Try Not To Breathe, Nightswimming, Find The River, Star Me Kitten. I'm struggling in fact - Sidewinder apart - to find any poppy crap on it. Way off the mark.

I think it's an amazing pop album, and i don't mean that in a disparaging way (poppy crap was menat tongue in cheek that REM are can and have done much better). Nothing wrong with good pop and I can appreciate alot of people like it, hence why half of the album were singles i suppose but it would be one of my least fav REM albums. I think If you take REM from Murmur to HiFi that album sticks out like a sore thumb.

Miguel_Sanchez

It's funny - I don't really mind that they've broken up because I haven't really cared for their stuff for a while.

But Find the River, Country Feedback and So. Central Rain are all amongst my favourite songs ever written.

JerryHandbag

Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »

It's funny - I don't really mind that they've broken up because I haven't really cared for their stuff for a while.

But Find the River, Country Feedback and So. Central Rain are all amongst my favourite songs ever written.

The live version of that as a bonus track on Document is amazing. One of my faves too.

Android 666

lordgoat wrote: »

I think it's an amazing pop album, and i don't mean that in a disparaging way (poppy crap was menat tongue in cheek that REM are can and have done much better). Nothing wrong with good pop and I can appreciate alot of people like it, hence why half of the album were singles i suppose but it would be one of my least fav REM albums. I think If you take REM from Murmur to HiFi that album sticks out like a sore thumb.

I think it's a fantastic album and one of the defining albums of their career. Out of Time is the one that hasn't aged well for me and is the bridge between Green and Automatic. Out of Time has definitely more pop in it than Automatic and one of the things that was said at the time of Automatic's release was that it was Out of Time without any singles. Which is bizarre when you consider how big those songs became.

Mind you Out of Time still has Near Wild Heaven, Country Feedback and other great songs. Just the likes of Radio Song and Shiny Happy People really drag it down in my opinion.

For me the best albums are Murmur, Automatic for the People, Life's Rich Pageant, Document and Green. All the others up to HiFi have great songs but don't just match up to the quality of those 5. Of the albums after HiFi I only have Reveal and Accelerate and neither of them are great shakes tbh.