Given yesterday’s news, it seemed to appropriate to dust off and post this episode of my Slicing Up Eyeballs show on Strangeways Radio from March 8, a show devoted entirely to R.E.M. to mark the release of the band’s 15th — and now, it turns out, final — album Collapse Into Now. I can’t say I’ve been as big a fan of R.E.M.’s output in recent years as I was in the ’80s and early-to-mid ’90s, but they are certainly one of the bands I’ve loved longest and most consistently in my life. They will be missed.
Slicing Up Eyeballs: R.E.M. Retrospective (Aired 3/8/11) by Slicing Up Eyeballs
Playlist: Slicing Up Eyeballs on Strangeways Radio, aired March 8, 2011
“All the Best” (Collapse Into Now)
“Pretty Persuasion” [Live] (Live in Chicago, 7/7/84)
“Disturbance at the Heron House” (Document)
“Swan Swan H” [Live] (Athens, GA: Inside/Out)
“Turn You Inside Out” [Live] (Tourfilm)
“Country Feedback” (Out of Time)
“I Don’t Sleep, I Dream” (Monster)
“These Days” (Lifes Rich Pageant)
“Catapult” (Murmur)
“Houston” (Accelerate)
“Leave” (New Adventures in Hi-Fi)
“Find the River” (Automatic for the People)
“Perfect Circle” (Murmur)
“One” [Live] (Automatic Baby, Live in Washington, D.C., 1/20/93)
“World Leader Pretend” (Green)
“Gardening at Night” (Reckoning electric demo)
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Video: Watch encore set from R.E.M.’s final concert — Mexico City, Nov. 18, 2008
- R.E.M., 1980-2011: Genre-defining college rock band breaks up after 31 years
- Vintage Video: Full R.E.M. concert from 1985′s ‘Fables’ tour filmed for ‘Rockpalast’
- R.E.M. ‘Lifes Rich Pageant’ 25th anniversary reissue to include 19 unreleased demos
Once upon a time I loved them- my first listen to Chronic Town thrilled me like nothing else before it had, well maybe except the Beatles. Murmur just confirmed my feelings, that I had a new favorite band. I was fortunate enough to see them three times by the Document tour. I liked that album a lot, not as much as previous albums, and I was put off by what felt like a “sellout” in the form of Green. My relationship with the band changed from there on out, though I was attracted to certain songs of theirs, the thrill was pretty much gone, they became just another band I kinda liked. But that early peak really changed me in ways- certainly helped my tastes evolve, but also gave me a way into more pastoral, simpler sounds- it was the jangly, half acoustic sound of Murmur that got me into the Byrds, and from there into the Canterbury scene, and the Velvet Underground as well.
Is the end of the rock musician as superstar over? Sometimes it seems so.
Great comments Mike S. My experience is very similar to yours….loved them thru “Document” and I fondly remember watching the premiere of “Orange Crush” and thought it was a letdown. Songs off certain newer albums were OK but nothing struck me like the old stuff. Perhaps in a few years they’ll do a tour with the old lineup.
I loved the Beatles until I was put off by what felt like a “sellout” in the form of their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
My relationship with the band changed from there on out, although the band had no way of knowing or caring about my delusional relationship path with them.