Does anyone else like R.E.M

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I have always found their music to be pleasant, but seems a lot of people don't care for them. Even my boyfriend said he doesn't really enjoy them. So IDK just looking for fellow R.E.M fans, because I do really like their music.

Oh and I just found it one of my favorite songs of theirs I ever heard:

Yes I like them and the other bands from the Athens, Georgia new wave/alternative scene.

Indeed I do.

Monster is the first album I ever bought, and they are one of my favorite bands.

As far as people disliking them, that's any band, but they were certainly huge in the early-to-mid 90s. When they renewed their contract with Warner Bros. in 95 or 96 it was for the highest amount of money for a record contract, at that point in time. It's kind of sad that they produced so many great albums for years, but are now mostly remembered for only "Man on the Moon," "It's the End of the World," and "Losing My Religion." Three songs out of roughly 30 years, though I don't think they ever made a genuinely bad album.

For some reason, REM has maybe the strangest fanbase of any band, even though the superfans for any group can be myopically passionate. I find REM fans have so many biases and irrational cutoff points for when the band stopped being good (I don't think they ever did). Some ignore the post-Berry years, the major label years, or anything after Murmur. I think somewhere there's an REM fan who finds everything after their first practice to be a sellout. It seems people develop a very personal attachment to their music, misinterpret the band's character, than get annoying when the band does things which that individual fan finds out of character. REM fans project themselves onto the band more than any other group of fans I've seen. Of course, most fans resent when their songwriters try anything new or different, as if people don't age or accrue new experience, or have changing wants.

Some of my favorite songs of theirs are "Driver 8," "Perfect Circle," "So. Central Rain," "Beach Ball," "Parakeet," "Find the River," "King of Comedy," and "Electrolite."

They're one of my favorite bands.

REM in America and The Smiths in the UK are the two key bands involved the transition from 80s synth based New Wave to 90s guitar based alternative rock




Kate Pierson of fellow Athens,GA act the B-52’s joins in. All hail the 40 Watt club where all those Athens band got there start.

Have long had good feelings about REM.

REM were great to play at parties in the Nineties and early 2000s when I was a party Deejay. "Shiny Happy People" and "Stand" are good to dance to, as is "End of the World". The hyper End of the World is good for blending into a contrasting slow groove r+b type song like Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Heallng".

Later I had a lot of fun playing End of the World (its the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine) on my little public access radio show back when Evangelist Harold Camping was telling us all that the world was going end on some particular date in 2013, or whenever it was.

Micheal Stipe and REM also did a respectfull live cover of the Sixties' country hit by the late Glen Campbell "Wichita Lineman" which I like.

Murmur, Reckoning and Document are my favorite R.E.M. albums.

I never get that kind of stuff, I mean many bands I enjoy have had various line up changes and such sometimes it can be a bit disappointing but I am all about the music. I mean one band I was really enjoying called Twilight Force kicked out their lead singer and well part of the reason I liked the band was I thought the singer had a really good voice. So yeah initially I was sad about it but then that singer started his own band called NorthTale and Twilight Force has gotten a new singer who seems to fit well enough with their sound. So one way to look at it is due to the conflict within twilight force that led to the singer being removed from the band there is yet another wonderful power metal band to enjoy.

Then there is Iron Maiden, some people only listen to the early stuff with their original singer and I like some of that too but Bruce Dickinson was really the perfect vocalist for that band. I mean even if it wasn't for the drug abuse and issues the initial singer had he still had a more sort of punk style of singing which I don't feel really fit the sort of epic metal nature the band developed.

Like IDK if I dislike a line up change a band has done, I just move on to other music if I find their line up change has changed the music too much or if they've just changed their style too much. I mean there is one pop artist I like, Lilly Allen(I hate most modern pop music) but I certainly prefer her older stuff the latest music I heard from her I didn't really like just wasn't the same as her earlier just kind of satirical lyrics with a catchy pop tune. But what would be the point of complaining about it...there is plenty of other music i can listen to. Also I respect the right of artists to do their own thing and experiment it doesn't matter if I don't like it its not my art its theirs so I have no say in what they do with it.

Like in any relationship in real life both you and the artist change as you grow older so you are no longer compatible with their art. One has to move on. For example to me Van Halen will always be David Lee Roth and never Sammy Hagar, but Van Halen did just as well or if not better during the Sammy Hagar years. I can state my opinion but there is nothing else I can or should do about it. Lily Allen the artist you mentioned did not sell out her fans, she is not the bratty person coming out of her teens that she was when she started out, she is now a women in her 30s who has been through marriage, divorce, miscarriages, kids and other experiences her art now reflects. In other cases a bands art may evolve and I go along with them. For example, Depeche Mode started out as cookie cutter synthpop and evolved into a ground breaking Electronic and alternative rock act and I really like pretty much most of it. I am decades older and know I am autistic which means some art I did not like is now very relatable. For example during the height of prog rock in the 70s the people that liked it that I dealt with were total stoners who bullied and excluded me because I was not like them(they probably thought I was a narc). Adding “adult” things like classical music elements to rock music defeated the whole purpose of rock in my view. Now I get and even like some of the sophistication and appreciate how “autistic” the intellectual obscure themes are.

Yup, my favorite album is Monster.

When I was 11-12 I would listen to it nightly on my walkman in bed, when I should've been sleeping for school. I had to memorize that album.

R.E.M. is not my favorite, but I do enjoy some of their songs. My favorite is probably Losing My Religion, and I also like Man on the Moon and The One I Love.

Love R.E.M.

Love the songs you guys posted, like the song drive too

P.S Don't forget it's the end of the world.