Automatic for the People

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mediocreplayer
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Automatic for the People

Post by mediocreplayer » Sat Nov 04, 2017 12:55 pm

No particular point to this thread. It is the 25th anniversary of REM's landmark album. Whenever someone asks me "What is your all-time favorite record?" Automatic is the answer I often give. What an incredible bunch of songs. Nightswimming might be the most beautiful song anyone's every written -- it conjures so much emotion. I wish they had left The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite and Ignoreland off the album. They are good songs but they don't fit the somber vibe.

Anyone else likes this album? I know it is not completely in line with the taste of most people on OSG.

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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by mackerelmint » Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:33 pm

Huh. That album was the one that made me stop listening to REM. I liked Man on the moon, I did and do think it's a fine song, but overall my reaction to it was one of complete revulsion, the most I'd ever felt toward any music in my life up to then. In fact, I carried around a fair amount of contempt for them as people for a while because of that album. I don't mention it to troll or be contentious, just to stand up and be counted as one of the people on OSG who fall into the "REM doesn't seem like your bag" category, I guess. Although I really do like a lot of their stuff up to that point, and eventually I came to like some of their stuff after. I never got the love for that album, though. It's a total mystery to me, just beyond my comprehension. When it came out, I figured their fans would tear them limb from limb, basically.

What is it that people like about it? Explain, plz. Maybe I'll get it now that I'm not 15.
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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by mediocreplayer » Sun Nov 05, 2017 6:36 am

It seems we are almost exactly the same age. I was 15 when it came out as well. Feeling contempt for them as people because of a record seems pretty extreme though.

Like most music, I don't know if there is much to explain. It's an album that keeps unraveling itself as I get older. "Drive" worked for me as an angsty teenager with the "nobody tells you what to do" line and "Sweetness Follows" worked for me as an adult with "Readying to bury your mother and your father." It's a solemn record and I like sad music. Probably the same reason I dislike Out of Time and Monster and the same reason why my second favorite REM album is Up, which has this spirit of defeat running all through it.

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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by soggy mittens » Sun Nov 05, 2017 7:21 am

yeah one of those bands I like but find all of their albums to be far too patchy, a lot of filler to me.
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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Sun Nov 05, 2017 7:31 am

I absolutely loved REM's first three or four long players (counting Chronic Town as an LP), but the production values and songs got less spellbinding as they went on and, as with so many other 'crossover' artists, their most popular stuff was some of their weakest material in my book.

So I resisted Automatic For The People for a long time, though obviously I would've heard the singles taken from it. I'm not sure how or why I finally listened to the LP as a whole, but when I did I immediately loved Find The River and appreciated the rest more on each subsequent listen.

It's not an LP I'd bother with much these days, anniversary or no anniversary, but I would agree it's one of the peaks in their latter-day canon. Doesn't hold a candle to Murmur, of course, but what does?

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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by scottT » Sun Nov 05, 2017 10:10 am

mediocreplayer wrote:
Sun Nov 05, 2017 6:36 am
Like most music, I don't know if there is much to explain. It's an album that keeps unraveling itself as I get older. "Drive" worked for me as an angsty teenager with the "nobody tells you what to do" line and "Sweetness Follows" worked for me as an adult with "Readying to bury your mother and your father." It's a solemn record and I like sad music. Probably the same reason I dislike Out of Time and Monster and the same reason why my second favorite REM album is Up, which has this spirit of defeat running all through it.
It is a solemn album. I was thinking "dark", but I like your description better. If you were getting something out of it at 15 I think you were an exceptionally sensitive young person. I think the album is a masterpiece. What impresses me is partly what Ulrich just alluded to. It is quite different to their earlier work (which I also especially loved) and so I also resisted the album for awhile. Many bands don't have such a "second act". My favorite period is actually Fables/Lifes Rich Pageant/Document. I fell away at Green and had considered myself pretty much done. I don't recall what compelled me to pick it up. I agree about it working its way into your consciousness. Many of my favorite albums affected me that way...warming up to it over time until it becomes indispensable. Great things don't always reveal their secrets so readily, I guess.

I too recognize the "theme" which runs through it. Death and loss, mortality, but also importantly to me a bittersweet nostalgia interspersed with rays of hope. First of all, I love the smart reworking of David Essex "Rock On" in the opening track, and the build to the crescendo of distorted guitar and full orchestration (the latter courtesy of director John Paul Jones who does a brilliant job throughout). Tellingly, the lyric "oly oly oxen free" hints at many reference to children's games and memories of halcyon days of innocence in other tracks: Candy bars, falling stars, readings from Dr. Suess (The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite). Let's Make A Deal (Monty Got A Raw Deal), Twister, Risk, Monopoly, twenty-one, checkers and chess (Man On The Moon). Skinny dipping (Nightswimming).

And as I said, there are rays of hope in even some of the gloomiest tracks. Live your life full of joy and wonder, sweetness follows (grief). Hold on, everybody hurts, you're not alone. The impossibly beautiful Find the River, uses the analogy of rivers emptying into the ocean to describe "this life passing before our eyes". Yet even there, hope and the promise of renewal is given in the form of flower imagery and encouragement: "strength and courage override". The defeat of "nothing is going my way", is changed at the end to "all of this is coming your way". Again, Stipe talks us off the ledge. Ultimately, the message is hang in there, you will get over this, things will get better.

Speaking of Find The River, I think of it and Nightswimming as a suite. I can never play one without the other. They are inextricably linked in my mind and together are the greatest musical one/two punch I know of. I think they are Stipe's crowning achievement as a lyricist.

I regret that I chose not to bother Michael Stipe when I had a perfect opportunity to tell him how much his music has meant to me over the years.

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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by Pmg » Sun Nov 26, 2017 2:10 am

Great album

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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by TeenageShutdown! » Sun Nov 26, 2017 12:41 pm

I didn’t care for the album either. Their IRS period is killer.
Also, their ‘85 live Rockpalast show is awesome.

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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by s_mcsleazy » Sun Nov 26, 2017 11:56 pm

i have a weird relationship with automatic for the people. it's an album i have good memories of from when i was in high school..... but nowadays when i try listening to it..... i get annoyed at how overplayed most of it is. i dont think it's one of the better aged albums in the rem discography. but if you watch interviews where they are talking about the album, there is a lot to appreciate in that they wanted to use as little electric guitar as possible.
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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by mezcalhead » Tue Nov 28, 2017 9:49 pm

mediocreplayer wrote:
Sun Nov 05, 2017 6:36 am
my second favorite REM album is Up, which has this spirit of defeat running all through it.
I seem to remember an interview from Scott McCaughey in which he claims to have written a significant part of that album, or at least to be the only band member in the studio the whole time it was being recorded. That may be why it's so good I guess.

I loved the early REM albums, the first albums I heard were Fables & Life's Rich Pageant while at school, saw them at Brisbane's old Festival Hall touring Document supported by the Go-Betweens. I started losing interest at some point. Reveal still had enough in it to provide a memorable soundtrack to a summer I spent in Montreal, but after that my interest declined rapidly, not helped by the fact that Around The Sun was a terrible album. It was almost insulting how bad it was, I thought, they were really phoning it in on that one.

It's a measure of how much I lost contact that I only discovered today that there was another album after Accelerate, which I always thought was their last.
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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by mackerelmint » Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:01 pm

Huh, I never even realized Scott played on it. It would kinda make sense if he influenced it, he's said that like 90% of the stuff he writes is super duper sad. And the other 10% is Young Fresh Fellows kinda stuff. But I still like him more than 10%. Speaking of Scott McCaughey, the gofundme that his wife put together right after his stroke broke $100K as of a few days ago. It's a shame that he'd need that, but it's heartening to see how much love he's been getting from his fans.
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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:02 pm

mezcalhead wrote:
Tue Nov 28, 2017 9:49 pm
I started losing interest at some point. Reveal....Around The Sun....

It's a measure of how much I lost contact that I only discovered today that there was another album after Accelerate, which I always thought was their last.
It's a measure of how much I lost contact that I've remained blissfully unaware of all these LPs till now. It's sad that they allowed themselves to go out with a whimper after being an era-defining band in their early years.

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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by mackerelmint » Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:08 pm

Don't tell anyone, but they still play shows.

Occasionally. At the crocodile cafe in Seattle.
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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by mezcalhead » Wed Nov 29, 2017 9:56 pm

mackerelmint wrote:
Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:01 pm
Huh, I never even realized Scott played on it.
I think he was even around for New Adventures, but IIRC then Up was when they brought in Scott, Ken Stringfellow, and the drummer whose name escapes me.

UlricvonCatalyst wrote:
Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:02 pm
It's a measure of how much I lost contact that I've remained blissfully unaware of all these LPs till now.
That could be a cool kinda party game, "what's the last REM album you remember?" or indeed for any band with a similar career trajectory.

mackerelmint wrote:
Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:08 pm
Don't tell anyone, but they still play shows.
TBH for a better use of personnel I'd rather go see the Minus Five, or even Robyn Hitchcock with McCaughey/Buck in the band.

Although I did used to really love Mike Mills' bass playing and backing vocals - basically when I was 21 I wanted to be Australia's answer to Mills.
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Re: Automatic for the People

Post by mackerelmint » Wed Nov 29, 2017 10:27 pm

Funny, I've seen both the Minus Five and Hitchcock with McCaughey and Buck, never seen REM. I guess I'd kinda like to see one of their occasional secret shows just to check that box, and they are all hands on deck affairs with the full lineup, but on the other hand I'm kinda like "I'd like to see Scott play a show where Peter *isn't* there for a change" I don't think that's happened since the early 90s for me. Last YFF show, Peter was only up for a minute farting around with Tad for the intro, but still. When he's sitting in with YFF, he's like this tangible party pooper out of place looking morose while Scott is wearing stupid hats and Kurt is stepping on his cable and tad is being tad while Jimmy Sangster just laughs at the whole affair. Except for Peter, who is not contributing to the fun and is usually drowning out either Kurt or Scott.

FOOOOOOO

Edit: I lied, he wasn't at the YFF show I saw in like 2011. Still though.
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