The recent breakup of R.E.M. didn’t get me too upset. I was going to say their last couple albums weren’t great but checking their wiki it turns out they did a whole 6 albums out after Monster. Wow. Right now I’m listening to their new best-of on NPR. No regrets, I think. I thought Monster was good. It managed to be right on the edge of weird rock I was getting into. Post-Nirvana, a lot of people I knew got more into Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters was a big deal to them. That’s stuff’s ok but didn’t really do it for me. Post-Monster, R.E.M. wasn’t very weird or very rock at all anymore. They could have broken up in 95 as far as I’m concerned.

(Now this is just getting weird. I forgot all about this video.)

I remember a point when I stopped listening to them on purpose. Same thing with Nine Inch Nails, weirdly. I might still have a copy of Monster somewhere and I have a couple of the early ones on vinyl. But Automatic For the People was pretty heavy for a while there. Automatic into The Downward Spiral back-to-back a few times will give you an idea of the mood I sustained for long enough to not want to revisit it. Both great albums tho. (Great CD design on these too, wish I kept them for that alone but couldn’t even look at them anymore.)

Whoa, half way through disc 2 I definitely do not give a fuck anymore. I’ll admit the late 90s stuff was still good, I just wasn’t feeling it at the time. But after that, oh no, not at all. This makes me want to buy a new copy of Eponymous tho. I really recommend that one. All the best early stuff. I don’t even like Green or Out of Time as albums, never bought them. Some great songs, but they are all played to death on radio. (They do not even include Radio Song on here, which was kind of a hit, but was pretty annoying. [Sorry, KRS!] Not nearly as annoying as Shiny Happy People tho.) I think the only early song I knew when I got Eponymous was It’s End of the World, which is the last song and I decided pretty quick it was the worst of the bunch. Still like it but it’s that good of a collection. It also has the single version of Radio Free Europe, which is a better mix. It might have a couple different versions of other songs. All those songs have great production.

REM’s demo tape is now floating free. Worth a listen. Interesting back story on that tape going through a member of the Philly band Bunny Drums at a gig in a venue in Cherry Hill, NJ which I never knew existed.

So that’s interesting. %