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Of all the little shocks I got when I first started reading Acclaimedmusic in about 2005, one of the biggest came from R.E.M.'s rankings.
At the time I was already an established R.E.M. fan, and had actually read a lot of reviews and formed my own opinions on not only what were the best R.E.M. albums, but also which were the more acclaimed ones.
It was quite clear to me that the IRS years were their critical and artistic peak. I've seen just about every IRS album get a 5 star. Murmur's acclaimed score indicates this, but many of the other albums don't.
Reckoner is almost a universally 5 star reviewed album, yet it only ranks 600 of all time. Out of Time on the other hand has been slammed in recent years in every album guide I've seen, and is generally viewed as being less than a 4 star quality. In fact, the only album I ever see get great reviews from critics from their Warner Bros years (every album from 1988 on) is Automatic For the People.
So why do albums like Green and Out of Time outrank Reckoner and Life's Rich Pageant despite having what I see as almost universally less respect. Do the IRS albums not do as well internationally? Do you think the Warner Bros albums get extra press due to superior sales? Maybe singles ("Losing My Religion") single handedly drive up the scores of what are generally weaker albums from a band I consider the best of the 80s and maybe the #10 band of the 90s.
When looking at R.E.M. albums, you certainly see a clear breakout for acclaim. You have the top 2 (Automatic and Murmur) which are clearly seen as superior to anything else the band has done. Then, depending on the source, you have the 2nd tier as their "kings of college rock" 80s days, or you put their commercial 90s peak (Losing My Religion, Shiny Happy People, Bang & Blame, etc) there. It is hard for me to separate the 2 because when I listen to something like Document (the last IRS record,) I see that as the stylistic tipping point in their career, where they stopped being muddy and started getting more commercial-friendly (though I think we all know it isn't that they became more mainstream but the mainstream came to them.) I am much more of a fan of the post-Document R.E.M. just because I believe that the first 4 albums were just too similar in tone.
Green and Out of Time were more mainstream-accessible, so they're more often seen as obligatory includes on decade lists, whereas Life's Rich Pageant and Reckoning only make the indie mag lists.
I can understand why the indie ones aren't ranked higher...I just can't see why Green and Out of Time (which are both mediocre imo) are highly ranked.
Believe Me, if every small artist like R.E.M. moved to an big record label and made albums like: Automatic or Out Of Time i would be happy. It could be worse, look at Liz Phair, loved that chick since the 90's, and Whip-Smart is a 4.5 star album to me, but since her move to Capitol (starting with whitechocolatespaceegg), too pop, and the songs weren't that great. I hope that now she's on an indie label again, she starts doing some good stuff, it doesn't have to be Guyville 2, just something fresh that is not overproduced or silly songs about boys (she's not Taylor Swift), she could talk about relationships like she used to, with an critical, realistic and sexual eye. Her girlysound demos are a masterpiece. But in my opinion R.E.M. is pretty awesome and consistent, i even like Monster (some people just hate that one). I guess things start going downhill when they released Up! (it wasn't that BAD, what came latter was) Accelerate showed a nice return to form, maybe the next one will be even better.
Automatic For The People...
lightning in a bottle.
for the record, I've never dissed Automatic. I just think it's the lone 5 star album among a bunch of 3 1/2s in their warner bros catalog.
I wouldn’t say R.E.M. suffers in the rankings, exactly—they’re AM’s #15 artist, and, although I have them much higher personally, objectively, that seems about right.
I agree that their album rankings are a little weird—in my book, Out of Time is not a great album (although it has 2 or 3 great songs), and both Reckoning and Lifes Rich Pageant are underrated. (And Document has now fallen out of the top 5 of 1987, dernit—although that was a very strong year for albums.)
One thing that’s going on here is that their career path has been very unusual—unique, I would argue. There must be a dozen indie bands from the 80s with very highly acclaimed early albums—the Mats, Hüsker Dü, Black Flag, Minutemen, etc. Now, the “expected” career path for these bands is they release 4 or 5 more albums and then fade away.
R.E.M. skewed this pattern in a couple of ways. First, partly thanks to three years of building their base of fans and critics, and partly because it’s a fantastic album, their debut, Murmur, achieved an unbelievable amount of critical acclaim—famously beating out Synchronicity, War and Thriller (!) in almost every critic’s list for 1983.
(I don’t quite understand that, since Thriller was late ’82, but anyway…)
This was something of an albatross for the band, as they recognized themselves (there’s a reason album #2 is called Reckoning). Then, the second way they broke the 80s-indie-band pattern is that they kept getting bigger and bigger until eventually, they broke out of the indie ghetto to achieve near-U2 status for a few years. Until Nirvana broke, they were the one indie band that EVERYBODY knew about, and that’s a big reason why their first three Warners albums are highly acclaimed, whether they deserve it or not (yes, sales do enter into it).
Now, Automatic certainly deserves its top 100 status. I also think Green’s ranking is about right, but it probably gets there for the wrong reasons. Even by R.E.M. standards, it’s a strange, highly experimental album (including a couple of failed experiments) which has turned out to be very rewarding to return to often. But I suspect its ranking has more to do with it being their first Warner Bros album—just as Out of Time’s ranking has a lot to do with it being their first #1 (and for including “Losing My Religion”).
So, that’s a very long-winded way of saying that I think the reason R.E.M.’s album rankings seem a little “off” is because over the course of their career, they repeatedly confounded expectations. Their story doesn’t fit what a canonical Great Band is supposed to do, and a lot of critics didn’t really know how to account for that.
Here are my R.E.M. album rankings (today). I’ll even do something I never do, and add “stars”:
1. Murmur (5)
2. Automatic for the People (5)
3. Lifes Rich Pageant (5)
4. Document (5)
5. Reckoning (5)
6. New Adventures in Hi-Fi (4.5)
7. Green (4.5)
8. Fables of the Reconstruction (4)
9. Out of Time (4)
10. Accelerate (3.5)
11. Reveal (3.5)
12. Monster (3.5)
13. Up (3)
14. Around the Sun (1)
IRS and it's not even close. Automatic is ok but it doesn't compare to how vital Murmur, Reckoning and Document were to the 80's rock scene. Automatic kind of blends in with the rest of 90's rock to me, but think of what REM meant to indie rock as we know it and rock in general in the 80's. I am of the opinion that the IRS sounds better even w/o historical significance but when you factor that in, IRS really blows the Warner Bros years out of the water.
No early R.E.M.= no alternative rock/ no indie rock.
To me R.E.M. is the point where punk/post-punk became "Alternative", and they basically cornered the market for a good 3-4 years before other bands started to catch up.
Out of Time has Losing My Religion, which is REM's most popular song. Take that song off it wouldn't even be rated in the top thousand.
IRS by light years, not even a question, and you're right, the rankings here are extremely strange. I've never been as high on Automatic as others are. Murmur, Reckoning, Life's Rich Pageant, and Document are all great albums, and Fables isn't too far behind.
Out of Time is probably one of the most overrated albums of all time (yes, even though it's not that highly rated in the first place). Outside of maybe 2-3 tracks, the album is really quite horrible. Green is ok. Monster and Reveal are barely passable, Up is ok, New Adventures is really quite good. Around the Sun is laughably bad.
To me there's just no comparison
I also consider Out of Time possibly the most overrated album of all time. Nearly every album in the top 1000 is better than that album, which like you said, is dragged up by two or three great songs.
R.E.M. is one of my favorite bands but that album is really average. Same story with Monster...one (excuse the pun) "monster" single, and a bunch of really staid generic post-grunge. Meh.
I know I already did a list but I'll do the entire one just to show what a drop off I think there is:
01. Murmur (5 stars)
02. Automatic For the People (5 stars)
03. Reckoning (5 stars)
04. Life's Rich Pageant (5 stars)
05. Document (4.5 stars)
06. Fables of Reconstruction (4.5 stars)
07. New Adventures in Hi-Fi (4 stars)
08. Green (4 stars)
09. Accelerate (4 stars)
10. Out of Time (3.5 stars)
11. Monster (3 stars)
12. Up (3 stars)
13. Reveal (2.5 stars)
14. Around The Sun (1.5 stars)
Average IRS star rating: 4.8 (almost all masterpieces)
Average WB star rating: 3.4 (Mostly average albums dragged up by a single masterpiece.)
“Horrible” is a bit strong for Out of Time. It has an unusual amount of filler (“Endgame,” “Belong”), the problematic “Shiny Happy People” and in hindsight, “Radio Song” is pretty awful. At the same time, it’s got two masterpieces—You-Know-What and “Country Feedback”—and some nice poppy things like “Texarkana” and “Me in Honey.” And the album overall has a nice bucolic, countrified "Wichita Lineman" sheen.
One of R.E.M.’s faults is that, if they’re not in a hurry, they sometimes over-think things. I think that’s why OoT is…uneven. (Most overrated album of all time = The Doors' s/t. Nyah.)
As for Monster, Jonathon, it ain’t post-grunge—it’s post-Thurston Moore (in fact, on “Crush With Eyeliner,” it’s actual Thurston Moore). Yes, it’s a derivative and kind of woolly album, but give R.E.M. some credit: at least they were reheating Sonic Youth and not Soundgarden.