Album Of The Day Thread

[Chest Rockwell]

I have never listened to an REM album. Where should I start?

[wordsfromlee]

1 hour ago, Chest Rockwell said:

I have never listened to an REM album. Where should I start?

Personally, my favourites are Murmur and Automatic For The People. 

[The Curious Orange]

The Partridge-style answer would be that they've got a really good best of - Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011

I'd probably go with the same choices as @wordsfromlee and pick Murmur, Automatic for the People and add Accelerate as albums that cover the 80's/90's/00's eras of REM.

[Chest Rockwell]

Cheers gents.

I went to Spotify to add them and my heart sank when I saw Automatic for the People was a double album because I hate those. Then I realised I was looking at some anniversary remaster and the second 'disc' was all live and demo stuff, so that's ok. 

[Carbomb]

Automatic For The People is the REM album everyone points to - it's probably their biggest one. For me, it's one of the definitive soundtracks of the 90s; the moment I listen to it, the wave of nostalgia hits.

[FLips]

Automatic For The People is my favourite album of all time. I would argue there’s not a bad song on it.

Murmur is an excellent shout too, and I really enjoy Green.

[SuperBacon]

Murmur for me. The one band I'm absolutely gutted I'll never* see live.

 

*please don't come in here with your "Well they played some songs last year, you never know" nonsense. I experience enough disappointment daily thanks, don't need to add to it

[Carbomb]

Nah, Stipe's always been insistent that, aside from special occasions like inductions to halls of fame or special honours, they're never reforming. If you look at their overall pattern since officially calling time on the band, they've suited their actions to their words. 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

REM were one of the bands that seemed to just be on the TV, radio and my parents CD player for my entire childhood.

Difficult for me to even listen to them without being hit with wave upon wave of nostalgia and actually feeling quite emotional.

When I got married this year, I put together a playlist of music playing quietly in the background while the guests arrived etc. There was a LOT of REM in there.

Only saw them once way back in 2005

 

[WyattSheepMask]

Not seeing REM when they played the KC Stadium in Hull in 2005 is one of my biggest regrets. To this day I’ve no idea why I didn’t go. The stadium had a few gigs in the first few years after it opened, and aside from the first one (Elton John) I don’t think any of them came close to selling out, so I’ve no idea why I didn’t go. It was only a short bus ride into town, a short walk to the stadium from the bus station, I’d have been able to pay on the door, but for some reason I decided to sit at home.

Edited February 13, 2025 by WyattSheepMask

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

On 2/11/2025 at 9:43 AM, Chest Rockwell said:

I have never listened to an REM album. Where should I start?

My favourites are New Adventures In Hi-Fi and Fables of the Reconstruction.

I can remember New Adventures being the first album I ever brought on the day of release…. Well, not exactly.

I would have been 14 at the time of release and we were on holiday in Orlando at the time and I can remember pestering my parents to have a shopping day on the Monday. Arrived at Altamonte Mall, straight into a music shop only to be told new releases come out in America on a Tuesday, cue a sulk for the rest of the day - I picked the album up a few days later, believe the same day we flew back home.

Regarding the latter, when I was first getting into R.E.M. I never liked this album. However, after learning more about the band and understanding that the album was recorded in London in the middle of winter when they were all homesick, fed up and all the songs have elements of the American south including references of local characters from their home town of Athens, Georgia and in Auctioneer (Another Engine) Michael Stipe sings about his grandfather (my Grandad was also a train driver) everything just fell into place for me and made appreciate the songs on a whole new level. Years later it become my favourite album of theirs in the IRS years.

[Carbomb]

One of the more underrate Pink Floyd albums. I went to the Pink Floyd exhibition at the V&A some years ago (this was in the lead-up to the release of their last album, The Endless River, which is excellent), and there were sections on their album covers and how Storm Thorgerson always put them together in real life, no messing around with graphics.

They had the two fabricated steel heads in a display space, and I got to stand between them.

Pink Floyd - The Division Bell

 

 

[TheHighlightReel]

I think The Division Bell suffers from a lot of people not wanting to like the album but I love it. Far less indulgent than a lot of Pink Floyd’s output, which now I think about it might have been an issue for a lot of the fanatics.

[FLips]

How did you get on with REM @Chest Rockwell?

[Carbomb]

18 hours ago, TheHighlightReel said:

I think The Division Bell suffers from a lot of people not wanting to like the album but I love it. Far less indulgent than a lot of Pink Floyd’s output, which now I think about it might have been an issue for a lot of the fanatics.

It's an odd one for me. Because I came to Pink Floyd comparatively late (which is odd, because I grew up with a copy of The Dark Side of the Moon in my mum's record collection), I've found there isn't an album of theirs I dislike, even A Momentary Lapse of Reason. What others might term "indulgent", I just consider "Pink Floyd doing what they do".