Special Announcement: ‘Hello’ Contest!
December 2, 2008
Hey everybody, or at least the people who still visit and/or have this site on their RSS feed.
I want you to know that I’ve set up a little R.E.M.-centric contest with the people at Insound. Basically, if you go here, you can enter to win a copy of the new R.E.M. coffee table book Hello: Photographs by David Belisle, which is one of the featured items in their holiday gift guide. There has never been a better time to support indie retail, so go check that out, they have a lot of great things on sale.
Also, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be doing the Accelerate songs sometime after Obama’s inauguration, so please stay tuned!
December 2, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Hey Matthew! Happy Holidays to ya. I did get a chance to see the ‘Hello’ book recently, it’s filled with some really great stuff. I’ll be sure to enter. Looking forward to future reviews and news. Peace!
May 1, 2009 at 11:09 pm
testing testing testing the new reply feature
December 2, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Good to know you’re still with us, Matthew! Can’t wait to read about the Accelerate songs. I personally think “DJ” would be a great way to kick things off, since that song has had the most time with us.
I’m also a little disappointed you never did “Live For Today,” but it’s really a half-song at that and i understand wanting to keep it to the major songs.
December 2, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Also look forward to your take on the Accelerate tracks. Pop Songs really is the gift that keeps on givin’!
December 3, 2008 at 12:20 am
Please stay tuned??? Try keeping us away!
December 3, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Hello Matthew, great to read you’re gearing up for Accelerate. I saw the band 3 times this summer and the songs from that record are the “real deal”. Also I purchased “Hello” earlier this fall and it’s a great read. I highly recommend it to all.
December 7, 2008 at 2:43 am
Hello,
Having missed out on this cool venture as it was taking place, I was wondering if you might consider adding a “today’s posts” page so that discussion could continue on what has already been written.
thanks
December 7, 2008 at 11:10 am
Can I make a suggestion? Or a desperate plea? When you do “Accelerate”, can you throw in another non-album track, just for kicks?
December 7, 2008 at 3:38 pm
And the beat goes on – hear from you soon then Matthew?
December 7, 2008 at 5:48 pm
There are some songs I actually don’t even have anymore. So if there’s something you really really want, you could try just sending it to me, and if I can work it in, I will.
As for having a thing where comments appear chronologically — I can follow that on my end with the moderation stuff, but I don’t really know how to gracefully integrate that into the site. I only check it sporadically myself, which is why sometimes it takes a few days for a comment to get approved, etc.
December 14, 2008 at 1:07 am
Not accusing you of anything, but when I “entered to win” that book I got two of the first spam emails ever to my inbox. -just saying…
December 17, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Quite an endeavor you have here! Impressive. I posted on an old encounter with R.E.M. today and ended up down memory lane here. Glad I did.
December 24, 2008 at 10:54 am
Fascinating–just now found the site while trying to track down the writing credit for “Theme from Two Steps Onward”. I’ll very likely be reading the whole thing. Thanks!
December 26, 2008 at 2:11 pm
yes thank yes
December 31, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Happy New Year!
I wish you PEACE…
January 1, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Happy New Year everyone.
January 4, 2009 at 11:29 am
Happy 49th Mr. Stipe.
January 4, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I’m right behind you, Man
One of us is a cigar stand
And one of us is a lovely blue incandescent guillotine
The edge of creation is blurred and blushed
Not a lot of room to grow inside this leather terrarium
People of the bay–it is extremely gray
Face the front when he comes for you
Type slowly
January 4, 2009 at 1:21 pm
uh, that should be “excruciatingly” gray……
January 4, 2009 at 1:37 pm
damn it
see what happens when you don’t type slowly?
I’ll stick to something I know
GO STEELERS
January 21, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Hey Matthew, has a winner been picked yet for the ‘HELLO’ book?
January 24, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Hi, Matthew–
I just discovered this blog! What a great idea! I’m really looking forward to reading your comments on “Accelerate.”
January 30, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Just checking in, I’ll have to keep checking back now though as I don’t want to miss Accelerate. I miss you guys!
January 31, 2009 at 4:09 am
Greetings Matthew,
Your site continues to be a wellspring of insights. With all the recent attention on Murmur/Deluxe edition, it’s been interesting to read reviewers memories of their first listen to it. It’s been nice to be able to quickly access this site and re-read your personal reflections on those great songs. I admit a certain personal glee as I’ve read some of those resent Murmur reviews, It makes me feel I wasn’t such a geek after all when I was 24 and listening to the mighty Murmur when it first came out (and pushing it on friends and family with an evangelical zeal!)Turns out it stood the test of time (of course it’s probably that I was an unreformable geek in ‘83 who just HAPPENED to like a really monumental piece of pop/rock songcraft)Thanks again from and OLD r.e.m. fan(geek) who’s proud to say the boys lived up to all expectations. I’m pretty happy too, Michael answered one of my questions (and that’s not a ha-ha) even though my question was admittedly very poorly written (not what I wanted to ask at all, what WAS i thinking?)
Take care Matthew
Terry Knouff
Moab
January 31, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Hello everyone!
February 6, 2009 at 6:08 pm
RIP Lux Interior
February 6, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Hey jimjos, how’s it going ?
February 6, 2009 at 6:09 pm
and BWD , how are you ?
February 7, 2009 at 2:46 pm
wow darkbob & jimjos, just went to REMHQ for the first time in a while , saw that The Minus Five and friends performed Neil Young’s Doom Trilogy in it’s entirety–every song?! in order?!–the night of January 30 in Portland, WOW……I wonder how that went…
I’m going to REM Tribute concert in NYC…………….uh, just kidding
February 8, 2009 at 1:53 am
Guys, it’s 25 years since Reckoning(!)
Is a deluxe edition on the horizon?
February 8, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I don’t reckon there is although there may or may not be a Day Of Reckoning…..(almost six years to the day since I first bought Reckoning, last record in back catalog that I got.)
I always thought of Neil Young’s Dark Masterpiece Trilogy as Zuma, Tonight’s The Night, and On The Beach…..But in link above it’s Time Fades Away, Tonight’s The Night, and On The Beach…hmmmmmnnnn…I never even heard Time Fades Away..I’m still thinking, “Surely they did not play all three records in their ENTIRETY the other night in Portland! That has got to be a misprint! That would just be too incredible.”
February 8, 2009 at 5:23 pm
dark Sunday here
just researching Time Fades Away, a real REM nugget that I came across in the process…..REM has cited the raw sound of TFA as having influenced the overall sound of New Adventures In Hi-Fi; I really wanna hear this record.
February 9, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Giddy Godspeed Babelogue barely averted.
February 9, 2009 at 3:42 pm
I never knew that Neil Young’s ‘Time fades away’ had any influence on ‘New adventures..’ But I can totally see the connection. How cool!
March 7, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Champion Scott:
I just got Sugar Mountain and it is now my favorite of the archive series; very nice to listen to, lights off, thinking about all the girls that have dumped me in the past!
Can’t wait to discuss Accelerate with everyone, miss this blog. R.I.P. Randy. I was actually on a bit of a Faulkner kick recently and was reading Pylon as I heard the news. One of his worst books but one of the my favorite bands.
Happy March.
It is almost a year since Accelerate came out, Time Fades Away, indeed.
March 8, 2009 at 1:29 am
Funny story about Faulkner; when he was working in Hollywood briefly–HE HATED IT, somehow he got involved with writing there, like Fitzgerald–one day he mentioned to his “bosses” that he was going to take his work home with him, sorta asking permission I guess…….He proceeded to take it back to Mississippi.
April 6, 2009 at 11:47 am
It’s on my mind
It’s in my mind
YOU CANNOT RESIST
YEAH
April 6, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Hey steady, steady.
Hey steady, steady.
Reckoning deluxe and Dublin 2007 coming out this year. I hardly ever buy cd’s anymore, but those will be exceptions. Looking forward….
I think we need to break out the Accelerate reviews soon…
Been a year, which I cannot believe. Time keeps on doing something into the future.
April 7, 2009 at 5:57 am
Yeah, wasn’t this site supposed to Accelerate sometime soon after the beginning of Obama-time?
April 11, 2009 at 11:35 pm
I’ll tell you this : If that song ‘Magnificent’ from U2’s new record doesn’t make you get up and shake your tail feathers , nothing will, you’re dead….. What a powerful, anthemic, and downright knock your socks off tune that is !! Just mesmerizing.
April 11, 2009 at 11:53 pm
It just soars like nothing I’ve heard in a long time. One of U2’s finest moments. I guess they still got a little something left.
April 13, 2009 at 7:30 pm
The ‘Only love can leave such a mark/Only love can leave such a scar’ couplet is amazing. Very anthemic and very U2
April 18, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I guess the U2 sound has worn a little thin to me. I liked their new album, but don’t love it. I heard a review that said this was a bold new sound for them… I don’t hear it. It sounds more like a Daniel Lanois album than any other U2 album before it. I like Lanois, so that’s not a huge problem, but the album just left me underwhelmed..
April 21, 2009 at 12:50 am
I wasn’t speaking of the entire record , just that song. Looking p Daniel Lanois now
April 21, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Lanois is one of their producers on many of their albums, included NLOTH. He’s a performer as well, and has several albums out. He did the soundtrack for the movie Slingblade. He’s fantastic. I’ve always heard a touch of his sound in U2’s albums that they’ve collaborated with him on, but this album sounds a little too much like Lanois. I dig the sound, but I’d rather have an album that didn’t sound like it was imitating him.
April 21, 2009 at 8:00 pm
oh interesting…….what songs on the record sound like him ? ‘FEZ–Being Born’ ? I like that one, too.
April 21, 2009 at 8:03 pm
actually I been listening to a lot of good old boogie rock lately, good time long-haired guitar type stuff. back to my roots..without the pot and beer… like when I didn’t think too much about shit and could handle a hangover…..
April 22, 2009 at 10:58 am
I Walk On Gilded Splinters
April 22, 2009 at 5:13 pm
CEDARS OF LEBANON and FEZ are particularly Lanoisish. They almost sound like Lanois could be singing. I hear it throughout the album in much of the subtlty, but you could probably say that about a lot of U2 songs he worked on, to be fair. Also, UNKNOWN CALLER starts off with some signature Lanois stuff. What else…. well, WHITE AS SNOW and MOMENT OF SURRENDER for sure.
Check out the Lanois album SHINE. Bono guests on the tune FALLING AT YOUR FEET. It’s a great tune, and you’ll hear what I’m talking about.
April 24, 2009 at 11:04 am
referred to as Eno’s protegé on Rhapsody, I’ll be checking out some of his stuff this week-end. thanx.
April 25, 2009 at 10:07 am
listening to Shine–the five albums listed as “similiar albums” are REM Reveal, Blood Money Tom Waits, Sinead O’Connor Faith & Courage, Lenny Kravitz Lenny, and Travis The Invisible Band. It should be stressed that at times Rhapsody is quite off the mark in their interpretation of these matters.
April 25, 2009 at 4:39 pm
As for his albums, Acadie is another favorite of mine. For the Beauty of Wynona is good. Again.. NLOTH sounds as close to his stuff as anything they’ve done. If I weren’t familar with Lanois’ solo work, I don’t know how that would affect my view of this album.