catching up on episodes….. my memories of R.E.M. start with seeing a video on Radio Free Europe on the local UHF music video channel U68 in 1985. U68 was almost like if college radio was a music video channel. I really wasn't crazy about The One I Love when they really started becoming popular beyond college radio. The first R.E.M. album I bought was the CD of Green when it was released. Orange Crush got me to buy it. And I loved that album so much I decided I needed to pick up some more R.E.M. and since I.R.S. Records had just released the compilation Eponymous I thought that'd be a good place to start. I went into our local mom & op record store Platter Puss and asked for it. I remember the dude telling me when I brought it to the counter "ya know this isn't their new album." I was like "yup I know." Got it home (always though "file under grain" on side was comical.) Listened through and was cemented a fan.
I really enjoyed this one, as they're a band I grew sick of a one point. But hearing some of those songs ( especially the oldest ones ) made me wanna hear the albums again for the first time in years.
yeah Mono I kind of lost track of them around Monster. I'd hear whatever the single/video was when it aired on MTV but there seemed to be some spark missing for me. I'll dip into their catalog post-Monster and see if I'd missed out on some gems….
There's some good stuff. My situation is that they're my girlfriend's favorite band, so I'd hear stuff so much that I didn't need to listen to it on my own.
Speaking of - a few months back, The Baseball Project ( featuring Mike Mills ) came thru town. I took her to the show, & made sure she got her pic taken with Mills. I'm pretty much golden for the next couple of years at least.
This episode also made me go back and start listening again. Forgot how much I liked these guys after suffering some Losing My Religion burn-out years back
yeah Tom, Losing My Religion kinda got me a little tired of them. But, man, that early stuff is so damn good. I've been listening to some of the stuff from Monster on and there's some good stuff in there.
