rem - 'you are the everything'

Tweet

29 years ago, REM released Green, one of the most influential albums on my life.

r.e.m. - 'stand'

Tweet

My all-time favourite REM album is 'Green', the last album before they really broke through as a global band. That's not me getting all hipster and "I liked them before they were famous" - REM were already a well established band with a huge following - it's just that 'Out of Time' and 'Automatic For the People' were such phenomenally successful albums. 

I guess the reason I like 'Green' so much is the jangly guitars and the way the whole album worked so well together. The title gives a big clue as to the subject matter and rather than the po-faced sermonising that they were certainly guilty of later on, this album delivers with some brilliant tunes. None better in my opinion than 'Stand'.

remembrance of things past

Tweet

This Proustian of titles is in honour of REM who announced their split this week. I am sad but I don't think there's too many people who hadn't seen it coming. They seemed to have reached the end of the road with the band and the last few albums are particularly unremarkable. I'd like to pay homage to them by picking a couple of songs from my favourite album of theirs, Green. 

This was them at their absolute best. It was their sixth album but their first for a major record company and they delivered one of the great albums of the late 80s. They changed a lot of their previous practices too. The lyrics were now written at the same time as the tune and they deliberately experimented with different instruments too to create an almost perfect album. They fully deserved their success and the albums of the late 80s and early 90s are what they should be remembered for more than anything else.