REM Go Into The Great Beyond

[Eldritch]

MSP's chart performance since 2000: 1-8-9-15-19-6-2-2-2-10-22-47-28-44-54

This must be some sort of re-entry or something, since at least according to their Wikipedia singles discography they had a 19-year unbroken run of top 40 singles.

[Patrick Bateman]

A Rihanna cover.

In February 2008 the Manics covered Rihanna's hit song "Umbrella". Their version appeared on a CD titled NME Awards 2008 given away free with a special souvenir box set issue of NME magazine, which went on sale 27 February. Additionally, the Manics' version of the song was made available on iTunes since 5 March 2008.[27] Despite being chart-eligible (it reached number 47 in the UK[28]), the release was not intended as an official single.[29] Two further versions (Acoustic and Grand Slam Mix) were later made available on iTunes and now comprise a three-track Umbrella EP.

http://www.chartstats.com/release.php?release=33451

[retrofuturist]

I liked R.E.M... a mighty fine band.

My favourite albums were Up and Document.

My favourite songs were Fall On Me, Nightswimming and It's The End Of The World As We Know It.

Retro.

[Your Funny Uncle]

Fall On Me

Hell yeah.

[Drico One]

Thanks, Drico! All is indeed well here, hope it's the same with you.

Oh, the usual misery interspersed with occasional bouts of melancholia broken up by comforting spells of ennui.

I'm not disagreeing with you about REM's undeniable decline in popularity. My point is that the singles chart is increasingly invalid way of evaluating a band's popularity, since so very few popular bands get into the singles chart nowadays. Kasabian has had big hit singles but they aren't having any now, despite being perhaps more popular than ever.

Yeah, I think the singles chart is dead - which is logical enough given that the single is moribund and doesn't really exist in tangible, easily-identifiable form anymore. Let's face it, is it even possible to define a single anymore? 10 years or so ago, around the time of Home and Dry, you could definitively say that it was the CD single (despite the ever-changing nonsensical chart-eligibility rules). 20 years ago, around the time of DJ Culture, you could definitively say it was the CD single and the 12" mix. 25 years ago, around the time of Suburbia, you could definitively say it was the 7" vinyl, the cassingle, and the 12". Now? Does the single even exist when every track from any available album is eligible for the chart. Or something. I've no idea, anymore. Nor should I. If you can't buy it in a shop - and if you can't touch it - I don't think it's a single, which effectively makes me Cro-Magnon man.

Another clear comparison to PSB is Manic Street Preachers, who were gutted that their last two singles missed the top 40 for the first time since 1991. And like PSB they pulled up all the stops with all formats including new b-sides on each one of them. It's funny that in late 2004 / early 2005 they had two number two singles from their flop album Lifeblood (the chart run: 13-51-out), but now they can't get a top 40 single from an album selling circa 150 000 copies. This really shows how the climate has changed. In a recent interview Nicky Wire said that the new singles collection is the end of an era for them, like a memorial of an age when a guitar band could get big hits, and that in the future they might not even release any singles any more.

MSPs' great tragedy is that they still put effort into something that no longer exists. Like Neil and Chris, their greatest canvas is now extinct.

But hey, there's always David Guetta featuring Some Anonymous Chick!

Drico.

[daveid]

This is the opinion of one NME journalist on the news of REM's departure (not the song!)
It sounds a little cruel, but it does some up my feelings about their last few albums, if i'm being totally honest. It's amazing how powerful denial can be...

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog= ... &tb=1&pb=1

[Drico One]

To be honest, I think you quite easily write the same article about Pet Shop Boys. I honestly don't think a band has to be in musical decline to be in terminal decline, just a disintegrating concept.

Successful bands occupy a psychological space that is largely mythical. They represent an idealised "something" for fans. Over time, and with familiarity, when that something inevitably becomes less definite, more nebulous, less clear, even a little tainted, then the razor sharp sense that fans have of a band begins to blur and they slowly come to pine for their former vision.

Small things chip away at fan idealism. Making a charity record, using guitars, employing Superchumbo, name-dropping Elton, deep-sea diving with Bono, getting a face lift, playing Microsoft's corporate bash, and supporting a troupe of g-stringers on tour aren't normally associated with that peerless duo from 1987 that sulked a lot, yawned, and refused to wave with Tarby. "Yeah, The Way It Used To Be, Integral, and Fugitive are amazing, but they should have quit after Very."

Drico.

[Eldritch]

getting a face lift

That I did not know. Is this a fact? Neil or Chris?

[Drico One]

What, you haven't noticed Neil's new chin?

[Eldritch]

To be honest, I think you quite easily write the same article about Pet Shop Boys. I honestly don't think a band has to be in musical decline to be in terminal decline, just a disintegrating concept.

For me the most important thing is that an ageing band has to be good enough not to debase its own artistic peaks. I for one don't expect PSB to ever reach again the heights of Actually, Behavior and Very but I hope that they continue to put out decently solid albums with occasional peaks. For me PSB has achieved that. Even though Yes went stale rather quickly, like a glass of lemonade forgotten on a table overnight, we still got Love Etc, The Way It Used To Be and After The Event. I'm not really a REM fan but as a sympathetic spectator, I would say that their recent records have also been good enough. Depeche Mode is on borrowed time because of lame Sounds Of The Universe, but Playing The Angel was so good, that I'll give them one more chance to redeem themselves. The Cure on the other hand has released two consecutive terrible albums in 2004 and 2008 and have therefore destroyed most of my love for them.

It's really tricky for a band nowadays, when they release something only ever three or four years, since even one misfire means a 6-8 year gap between decent albums. Thankfully PSB have kept themselves busy with various projects over the years, so a new studio album is not such a make-it-or-break thing for them.

[Your Funny Uncle]

The last two REM albums WERE a return to form to my ears, and that only after Around the Sun became the first REM album that I really couldn't get into as a whole. That said, I'm not in the least surprised to find myself categorically disagreeing with an over-opinionated NME hack.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings YFU,

Yes, I know what you mean. REM have certainly been 'competent' for the last decade or so, but with what came before, I think people have come to expect a bit more. After a decade of merely 'competent' there's not much hope held out for anything particularly inspiring, just slightly different flavours of what was probably done better and with more originality previously.

(And I say that as someone who has all the main REM albums other than the most recent one, which I will buy when it hits the bargain bin)

Retro.

[daveid]

The last two REM albums WERE a return to form to my ears, and that only after Around the Sun became the first REM album that I really couldn't get into as a whole. That said, I'm not in the least surprised to find myself categorically disagreeing with an over-opinionated NME hack.

Yes, I agree the last two albums were a partial return. Accelerate was very good, although it was a bit too frontloaded leaving a less good "second side". As for Around the Sun, I used to think it was an improvement on Reveal which I found too sugary, but I haven't listened to it for a while. Apparently Stipey was suffereing from writer's block for this album and Bono suggested that he just wrote whatever came to him and not worry too much. And as we all know, Bono is a ****ing ****! He probably didn't want the competition for their Atomic Bomb album!

Did I mention, Bono is a ****?

[Fugitive1979]

Did I mention, Bono is a ****?

Not just any old c***, but an M&S c***.

[Eldritch]

Have you ever wondered what REM had sounded if Stephen Hague had produced them? Well, I just found out that they actually did work with Hague in 1982 but didn't get more than one song on tape before the sessions were called off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUv4tn3zGj0

You can hear that it really wasn't a match made in heaven.