REM - "Losing My Religion"

By the way, what on earth has happened to Michael Stipe's voice? It's clearly lost a lot of range. Listen to the start of "I'll Take The Rain." Yuck.

cigarettes, almost certainly.

As for Losing My Religion.. it's by far their best single, and the one that will probably be remembered best fifty years from now, but I never feel the need to listen to it these days.

Country Feedback on the other hand..

The video looks so absurd now.

This Chapman idea is intriguing though.

Bad Day sounds exactly like "end of the world", scarily so.

I've been wondering the same thing. Did you see their second MTV Unplugged performance? It was really kinda sad.

Clop! Clop! Clop! Clop! Clop! Clop! Clop! Clop! Clop!
[sound of Georgians' feet on hardwood floor...]

The "Losing My Religion" video is one of the many things I adored in the early '90s that forces me to say "Hey, I was only a damn kid...what was AMERICA'S excuse?"

I think the Chapman comparison was one made in It Crawled From the South. It was really just the author's interpretation and nothing more. All the band has ever said about the song's meaning is that it's an "obsessive love song", which could be taken to mean it's about a whole lot of different things. Stipe has insisted that it has nothing to do with him or about being in the public eye which is a bit hard to swallow given the lines "that's me in the spotlight" and "I thought that I heard you singing". Plus, there's that whole video thing that just screams MEMEMEMEMEME. This song just really fucks with peoples heads on so many levels though which is why it's one of the best things ever.

Who would have thought a poignant song about going insane could ever top the charts [and no, Paul Davis' "I Go Crazy" doesn't count, I said poignant!]. The video also made it's mark, as has been referenced, how many videos followed that looked identical? Many. Is that a good thing? Probably not, but it was certainly as influential as it gets...

It would make me very happy if they still did all those things.

I heard this song on the hold music for a business I was calling, it was some kindof stripped down version...and it struck me what a truly awful, whiny song this is. Really defiles them, I think. But then I guess it's not as bad as "stand in the place where you work" and all that shit. I don't really give a fuck about whatever came after Document anyway.

Major scale, anyone?

http://vimeo.com/24939206

Hmmmmm ... it turns it into a slow version of "I Believe," apparently.

Now he should do "Shiny Happy People" in minor.

this is hilarious

There are a few of these things. Nothing Else Matters is particularly insipid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7FzLX0Ql8M

http://vimeo.com/24939393

^^^ Really really horrible.

Ha, that's great. I used to do this on the guitar all the time growing up. LMR kind of sounds like a doped up Feelies track.

'Smells Like Teen Spirit' would sound amazing.

jesus christ these are fucking hysterical

These are great. The Doors one results in some lovely little chord changes (e.g. at "Dog without a bone..." 00:57-1:01) that I am gonna steal.

LMR is improved greatly! I think there is a thread in the archives for cover versions that change the key from major to minor (or the reverse)... allow me to search.

Major key Losing My Religion actually sounds sadder, for reasons I can't put my finger on.

RFI: Cover songs that change the key from minor to major
RFI: Cover songs that change the key from major to minor

But yeah I love the song and also don't get *why* it's such a laughing stock to some. The riff is gorgeous as are the sad waltz parts.

I remember a reviewer (Christgau? not sure) calling "Shiny Happy People" a sort of defiant AIDS-era anthem, asserting joy in the face of death etc. That makes sense to me, it feels like it's reacting to an implied darkness offscreen.

The Genius annotations claim SHP is a critique of Maoism

The title derives from a Chinese propaganda poster from the Mao era, which read, “Shiny happy people holding hands”.

a Genius annotation can tell you, but it can't tell you much

You should see the poster that read, "I don't wanna be Iggy Pop, but if that's what it takes, yeah"

Circling back to "LMR" – Pitchfork gets this wrong (Buck plays mandolin on three Green tracks):

Grown entirely from a single riff on the mandolin, an instrument that was completely new to guitarist Peter Buck at the time

It's funny how these little false ideas about R.E.M. have built up over time...

oof

I was about to say that Buck played mandolin on "I Will Dare" for the Replacements three years earlier, but in checking I see that Paul actually played that, and Buck played the guitar solo. With Buck's name on the track, I just always assumed it was him on mandolin.

It's funny how these little false ideas about R.E.M. have built up out of over time...

― "Cool ranch dressing!" (morrisp)

Fixed.

_Monster_>>_Green_>>>>>>>>>>>>>_OOT_

otm

I've told this story before, but a friend of mine who used to do a lot of sessions and jingles knew this one mandolin ace who got a *ton* of work after "Losing My Religion" from people that didn't know mandolins from mandolines. One session this guy was in the booth tuning and warming up, and then, out of nowhere, a voice interrupted and said "OK, we got it!" They'd been recording, and his warm up noodling made the final cut.

You are out of your mind my dude

I always loved Stipe's contributions to the Golden Palominos' Visions of Excess, but I hadn't listened to their 1991 album Drunk With Passion until I heard about Anton Fier's death. I don't know that this cavernous production does the song any favours, and I'm sure that Stipe used this same vocal melody elsewhere, but it's an interesting alternate look at the more open-hearted style he had developed by Out of Time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GfOy5miUf4

The production's fine. I don't notice it.

I'd admit it's more typical of 1991 "adult alternative" than Out of Time.

On the Green tour Stipe would recite something like “I did not invent this world, all my words a string of pearls” or something like that. Was that Golden Palominos? I always wanted to check them out but never got around to it.

That Green era concert vhs was AWESOME

Tourfilm… yep

That's a line from "Future Forties", by Syd Straw, ex-Palominos singer, which was the only good song on her album and was a duet with Stipe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdpDVOrKQG8

I haven't thought about that album in a minute -- a hot 1989 college radio artyfact.

an interesting alternate look at the more open-hearted style he had developed by Out of Time

He starts singing this way on Document, I think. By New Adventures, he's sort of drifted into the falsetto and/or speak-singing style that carries all the way to Collpase Into Now. It's definitely gone by Up. It kind of slots him into the early 90s "big voice" pop style.

I don't like the Litt remix of Monster, but it's great hearing Stipe's vocals upfront. I think, in a weird way, he's considered a great frontman but might be a bit underrated for his vocals? No one else has really sung or sings like him. Similar timbre in Gene Clark and Gord Downie, but obviously their singing styles are totally different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00fy4Gc397c

just realised that "stand" is basically on the same wavelength as they might be giants

The video for "Stand” always reminds me of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, though I can’t really articulate why.

That Syd Straw video would be a good candidate for an "In Every 120 Minutes Video Ever” thread (pre-grunge era, at least). Grainy black and white to suggest 8mm, shots of small town Americana / wide open spaces, some retro 50s styling...

The video for "Stand” always reminds me of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, though I can’t really articulate why.

Same director.

I bought a mandolin approximately eleven years ago. Did I learn "Losing My Religion"? Yes, I did. I memorized it, recorded it (playing every instrument), then promptly forgot it.

I was born in 1971, so I was 20 when this song came out and 40 when I learned how to play the mandolin part. I am now 50mumble. When I am at acoustic gigs or open mics, every once in a while someone will see me holding a mandolin and ask if I know "Losing My Religion." In a sense I do (as in, it's totally in my wheelhouse and I could get through it if needed) but I also don't (as in, I don't want to play it and probably won't).

Sometimes just to fuck with people I will play "You Are the Everything" instead.

You Are Everything is a much better song!

Yeah it is

Do The Wrong Child

Pete & Pete had very strong late 80s/early 90s college/alternative rock energy, with their jangley theme and additional songs by Polaris, and numerous guest stars from that whole universe: Marshall Crenshaw, Gordon Gano, Kate Pierson, Juliana Hatfield, and, uh, Patty Hearst. Stipe himself had a memorable appearance as unpleasant ice-cream salesman Captain Scrummy.

Honestly "You Are the Everything and "Losing My Religion" are both good songs; I just feel like LMR is overexposed. Many years ago I did a tolerable (to me) instrumental arrangement of "Find the River." The one I really want to do (but haven't) is "Nightswimming." Now I just need to learn the oboe...

Man Nightswimming is so good too

They were a pretty god rock band, but in an alternate universe they focused instead on inventing a new approach to acoustic folk that made everyone happier and more chill during the years 1987-1995

*good, argh

LMR to me is the paradigmatic example of overexposure. I think I (would) really like it but it's impossible to evaluate, it's like wallpaper to me.

"You Are the Everything" is better for sure though. That one goes up against "Half a World Away" in my mind because of the similar melodies, and only recently has my preference started to tilt towards the former

Oh I also love "Half a World Away," though it is lyrically more slight.

Like, an acoustic-centric REM PO1 would be very difficult for me. POX is doable.

I was thinking about this last night— OOT sounds more explicitly queer to me than some previous albums, at least lyrically. It’s always been one of the records that I’ve emotionally connected to moreso than others. Could just be me, but there might be something there

I don’t feel like I qualify to opine on queerness, but Monster has always seemed to me like the pinnacle of that element in their work. A major part of its charm and power, for me.

They were a pretty god rock band, but in an alternate universe they focused instead on inventing a new approach to acoustic folk that made everyone happier and more chill during the years 1987-1995

― the floor is guava (Ye Mad Puffin)

I thought they did?

I'd say table and matttkkk are both right, especially if you include AFTP's odes to young male performers and a song as naked -- in every sense -- as "Nightswimming."

I was thinking about this last night— OOT sounds more explicitly queer to me than some previous albums, at least lyrically. It’s always been one of the records that I’ve emotionally connected to moreso than others. Could just be me, but there might be something there

For sure. . . it's definitely their most "emotional" record up to that point

Circling back to "LMR" – Pitchfork gets this wrong (Buck plays mandolin on three Green tracks):

Grown entirely from a single riff on the mandolin, an instrument that was completely new to guitarist Peter Buck at the time
It's funny how these little false ideas about R.E.M. have built up over time...

***

“Losing My Religion” *was* the first song Buck wrote on his new mandolin in 1987/88. It was written before the three Green mandolin songs, two of which Bill Berry actually wrote. But it was consciously held back from Green and saved for the next album because Buck recognized its commercial potential.

Driver 8, take a break.

That’s interesting! It should’ve said “at the time it was written,” then (as it sure sounds like it’s talking about the time it was recorded). The sentence goes on to talk about what the song “captures” from the band (not Buck’s riff), and the next sentence says more about the other three guys’ performances on the track.

LMR was written in 1987/88, before any of the other Green mandolin songs. Much like Pretty Persuasion was passed over for both Chronic Town and Murmur before being dusted off and recorded for Reckoning. Rock bands don’t write eleven brand new songs for every new album.

I get it, but no one without that context would glean the timeline from the blurb.

(I guess this isn’t the Pitchfork Suxx thread though, so who cares)

(I’m also not sure you’re right? Here’s Buck saying he wrote the song after the Green Tour)

“Losing My Religion” is one of my karaoke songs and it never fails to make the crowd go “why this song, my dude”

this remix rules so hard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOAEP9nZ4Gc