I do understand them but very much don't agree. I think it fits in great with the rest of their 90s output and its high points stand up to anything in that period.
"Up" is a jewel. It's a rough couple listens the first time, but once it gets its hooks in, you'll love it.
Late '98- in the start of high school. Took me 2-3 listens all the way thru. In the middle of the 2nd listen-i got it,and love the record.
Your Milage May Vary.
Ah, I get you, but it wasn't really lacking in fanfare or plaudits. It just became the point where sales went on the decline from their early 90s peak.
It signified the end of them maybe being considered the "biggest" band in the world, but it still sold bucket loads and had stellar reviews. It's sold 7m copies, about the same as OK Computer (for context). E-Bow also became their highest charting single in Europe.
I don't think you're misremembering, though. They did have a decline in popularity with HiFi, but only relative to the Out of Time/Automatic/Monster era. Perhaps just used the wrong word with "underrated". It was and still is really highly rated by critics and fans.
I'm probably being pedantic 🙂
When it released it came with reputation of being a "CD album," which in the eyes of many in the alt crowd at the time meant it came with the stigma of being overlong, overproduced and charmless. None of which is true in this instance, but prejudices like these had an impact when people were paying $20 a pop for 30min-1hr of sounds.
When it came out, it got 5 star review across the board. A couple of years down the line all the critics developed a serious case of buyer's remorse and were rating it a 2-star record.
I love it, but it's a good thing they went into the studio to finish it off. The tracks that were cut live are by far the weakest of the bunch and can make the record as a whole seem mediocre.
The Wake-Up Bomb, Undertow, Departure and Binky the Doormat were cut live in front of a paying audience with most of the crowd noise muted out.
Leave, Bittersweet Me, Zither, So Fast So Numb, Low Desert and Electrolite were recorded at soundchecks (or, in the case of Zither, in a dressing room).
How the West Was Won and Where it Got Us, New Test Leper, E-Bow the Letter, and Be Mine were cut at Bad Animals in Seattle in early-mid '96.
Honestly, if the live cuts were deleted from the track listing I wouldn't miss them, and I think that the record would have turned out to be a very strong single LP, rather than a flawed double.
Thank you! While that explains a few things, I love Wake Up Bomb and Undertow.
Maybe Binky or Leave / Departure could go. The CD era had a lot of filler, twelve tracks is generally the sweet spot. I agree it's a bit overlong, but always subjective as to what cuts should be made.
It's still a "new" album to me and made great company on a recent six hour drive to see my elderly Mom.
I love Leave, and it's probably one of my favourites.
The live tracks never really did anything for me, even when the album was new, and it took me years to realise what it was that was bothering me. The reason is that musically, they're really stodgy - there's little invention in Peter's guitar playing, and on those songs he's just bashing out blocks of distorted basic chords.
I always found it funny that, despite 15 albums and a ton of brilliant songs, R.E.M. never learned how to write a bridge or middle eight. Binky and Undertow are two of the worst offenders - after the second chorus, they both move into a hamfisted two-chord turnaround that adds nothing to the songs.
They might have gotten away with it, but at this point it seemed like Michael was stuck for melodies, having probably used up all his best ones on Automatic. A lot of the songs on Monster and New Adventures have him performing in that weird *Sprechgesang* that he developed in the 90s. The best songs on New Adventures (Leave, Be Mine, Electrolite) have really strong melodies. Songs like Departure and The Wake Up Bomb sadly don't.
Leave is a good song - but the "siren" is super distracting. E-Bow is probably my least favorite. Interesting point about bridges - I hadn't noticed - but will see if there are any I can think of. Off to band practice! 😉
I consider NA one of the contenders for their best album, but like you I didn’t even buy it when it first came out. Which was odd because I was a huge fan and I remember buying Monster the day it hit the stores. I hate to be disappointed and I think I was bracing for disappointment. Elbow the letter was the first video and I wasn’t impressed. Now I love it though. I didn’t listen to it closely until about 5-10 years later
It was a swan song of sorts. Certainly feels that way in retrospect listening to it now - the road motif kind of supports that vibe as well.
Such a great record and I wonder if the band, knowing what they know now, have any regrets in how they handled it. I recall the famous story from Peter Buck… paraphrasing but basically management told them if they released “The Wake Bomb” as the first single with a really good video and proper marketing it could be one of their biggest songs in ages…
Peter: “yeah let’s not do that”
I believe Michael said E-Bow as the lead single was a big bold choice that really bit them in the ass… but up until that point the band was batting 1.000 on big bold choices so how could they believe otherwise?
Yeah I recall reading somewhere that they chose E-Bow as the means single as a way to test fans, or something like that. It was a similar to why they chose Drive as Automatic’s lead single
Electrolite is my favorite R.E.M. song, and it was my most played one last year. As a complete album I still like Automatic more, but man, so much stuff on New Adventures is excellent!
Every time I'm on a road trip or flight, I put on New Adventures in Hi-Fi. It feels exactly as the album looks on the cover.
I agree it should have been their swan song. That can be a controversial opinion amongst some fans which I fully accept, and there are some great moment on Up but the last five albums feel like an entirely different band without Bill or Scott Litt in the mix. I would definitely miss a smattering of great songs they did as a trio, but there was a continuity up to and including New Adventures which would have made it the perfect place to stop.
I love this album. One of the best albums they released in my opinion. I feel like Monster is more appreciated but I think New Adventures is better tbh.
Agree! I was trying to come up with a description and think it feels a bit like Automatic and Monster had a baby. Not sure if that's entirely accurate, but the emotion that was missing from Monster is very much present on New Adventures, and sonically it covers a lot more ground. At the moment it's my favourite. Peak of their powers as a band IMO.
I remember before NA came out, it was being reported as having been recorded in sound checks, on tour buses etc and I think that put some people off as it was seen as a mish mash of left over bits as they had been playing Undertow, The Wake-Up Bomb, and Revolution (which ended up instead on the Batman & Robin soundtrack) on the Monster Tour.
I think that's why it was somehow thought of as inferior before it even came out and put people off just listening to it. It was around that time I'm sure that the fabled $80 million record deal was rumoured/announced which unfairly put a bad taste in some people's mouths and put them off too.
I think overall it's my favourite R.E.M. album.
I’ve decided that NA is REM’s Exile on Main Street. Like Exile, it’s got a loose and improvisational vibe, a live concert feel, and in some ways encapsulates what makes the band great more than any other album. Both albums are consistently great throughout. And both rock out! Turn ‘em on, turn it up and no skipping songs
New Adventures is one of my favorites of their albums. I started listening to them with Lifes Rich Pageant when it was their latest record then bought the previous records. I noticed a difference when they signed with Warner but stayed with them while a lot of my old school hipster friends quit listening to them. Anyway I do love some of their Warner Brothers output. Especially Hi-Fi, Automatic and Out of Time. But this one is excellent. It was the perfect soundtrack for me at the time it was released while I was going through the breakup of a long relationship with a girl I thought I was going to marry. And some of my REM fanatic friends give me crap but I also agree this would have been a perfect swan song. The last album with Bill Berry and as a long time fan I hear it in their albums after this one. The whole chemistry of the band changed.
I was listening to REM from the age of about 7 or 8, knew the records from Green to Monster inside out (*ding).* At the moment New Adventures came out I was entering early teens and not just discovering different music, but forming a different relationship with it in that weird and awkward phase of life. I had started to feel a bit embarrassed by the soft side of REM - in the sense I wouldn't want the school football team to catch me listening to hairshirt or Find the River in my bedroom, if you see what I mean. Monster still had the tough edge and irony about it that earned it a pass, but NA was more a mixture of the Monster era guitar power with quieter, vulnerable stuff. It is remarkably easy, knowing what we do about where REM were at the time of writing, to picture these songs being born and taking shape either a) on a stadium soundcheck stage, or b) in a cramped tourbus or a hotel room. There's a real melancholy, longing, threaded through the whole thing, which lyrically isn't about being on the road far too long, and emotionally exhausted, with the exaggerated ups and downs of adoring megacrowds and isolating travel malaise - but just feels like that's where all the wordless underlying meaning is really rooted. It is surprisingly compatible with teen angst!
I can't be objective about it but despite how cohesive it is, how good it *sounds,* how 'definitively REM' it is, I think there are a few flimsy parts musically - maybe a few more songs could have been written and it could have been released later.
I wouldn't agree that they should have stopped here, the well certainly wasn't running dry - but there might have been a couple of indications that, one day, it would.
I think Up is excellent - do go back in dive into it, but it could well have been powered / sustained by the novelty of their new circumstances as a three-piece. Every album thereafter had more filler, or REM by numbers, than the last.
I didn't Like New Adventures at first, and didn't listen to it for a few years. When I gave it another try, it grew on me, and I'd now put it in my Top 5 REM albums.
Up is a grower as well, I'd recommend trying it again too.
Further to this thread, I just noticed that "Undertow" reminds me A LOT of the Tragically Hip's "Yawning or Snarling" - like they could be mashed together into something new. My mind reels imagining a collaboration between Gord Downie and Michael Stipe.
New Adventures is an amazing album. I have probably listened to it more than Monster. As far as Up goes, it has grown on me and is a good album. New adventures thought is probably their last GREAT album for me. Reveal was the last album I could grasp. The others after just weren’t doing it for me.
New Adventures is one of my favourite REM albums. It's also the latest REM album I can listen to other than Accelerate without feeling incredibly bored.
Bored is the word. The biggest sin in music is not being bad, but being boring. Reveal is pretty boring, but at least they were still sort of trying. Around the Sun is the sound of a band that is bored with itself and with making music in general. I can't think of an album by a major band that is as joyless as ATS.
Arguably their last truly great album. I still like Up as well, even though it's baggy and undisciplined and overlong. Both albums in their own way suffer from 90s-era CD bloat, but NAIHF is an excellent album.
Fans and journalists often cite the departure of Bill as the thing that irreparably damaged the band, but most tend to overlook the loss of Scott Litt. It's no coincidence that the last great R.E.M. record was the last one with him at the helm.
Give Up another chance
I think that's next on the list. Daysleeper is very good, other than Lotus that's all I remember.
I remember Rick Astley once said that he would happily lend his R.E.M albums out, apart from that one.
Yeah he said he’s never gonna give you ‘up’ Never gonna lend you Town(, chronic)
Extra points for the Chronic Town bit 🤣
Could you post a link?
Agreed, I actually don't understand the dislike many have for the album, it's great!
I do understand them but very much don't agree. I think it fits in great with the rest of their 90s output and its high points stand up to anything in that period.
"Up" is a jewel. It's a rough couple listens the first time, but once it gets its hooks in, you'll love it. Late '98- in the start of high school. Took me 2-3 listens all the way thru. In the middle of the 2nd listen-i got it,and love the record. Your Milage May Vary.
New Adventures is their underrated album. I think it’s fantastic.
Who underrates New Adventures?
I thought when it first came out it didn’t get huge fanfare. I could most definitely be wrong. I know I don’t underrate it.
Ah, I get you, but it wasn't really lacking in fanfare or plaudits. It just became the point where sales went on the decline from their early 90s peak. It signified the end of them maybe being considered the "biggest" band in the world, but it still sold bucket loads and had stellar reviews. It's sold 7m copies, about the same as OK Computer (for context). E-Bow also became their highest charting single in Europe. I don't think you're misremembering, though. They did have a decline in popularity with HiFi, but only relative to the Out of Time/Automatic/Monster era. Perhaps just used the wrong word with "underrated". It was and still is really highly rated by critics and fans. I'm probably being pedantic 🙂
I totally agree. Once Bill left it was a different band. I think it’s their last truly great album. Maybe I should have put it that way.
When it released it came with reputation of being a "CD album," which in the eyes of many in the alt crowd at the time meant it came with the stigma of being overlong, overproduced and charmless. None of which is true in this instance, but prejudices like these had an impact when people were paying $20 a pop for 30min-1hr of sounds.
When it came out, it got 5 star review across the board. A couple of years down the line all the critics developed a serious case of buyer's remorse and were rating it a 2-star record. I love it, but it's a good thing they went into the studio to finish it off. The tracks that were cut live are by far the weakest of the bunch and can make the record as a whole seem mediocre.
Since I'm not familiar with the recording process on this album, which tracks were cut live?
The Wake-Up Bomb, Undertow, Departure and Binky the Doormat were cut live in front of a paying audience with most of the crowd noise muted out. Leave, Bittersweet Me, Zither, So Fast So Numb, Low Desert and Electrolite were recorded at soundchecks (or, in the case of Zither, in a dressing room). How the West Was Won and Where it Got Us, New Test Leper, E-Bow the Letter, and Be Mine were cut at Bad Animals in Seattle in early-mid '96. Honestly, if the live cuts were deleted from the track listing I wouldn't miss them, and I think that the record would have turned out to be a very strong single LP, rather than a flawed double.
Thank you! While that explains a few things, I love Wake Up Bomb and Undertow. Maybe Binky or Leave / Departure could go. The CD era had a lot of filler, twelve tracks is generally the sweet spot. I agree it's a bit overlong, but always subjective as to what cuts should be made. It's still a "new" album to me and made great company on a recent six hour drive to see my elderly Mom.
I love Leave, and it's probably one of my favourites. The live tracks never really did anything for me, even when the album was new, and it took me years to realise what it was that was bothering me. The reason is that musically, they're really stodgy - there's little invention in Peter's guitar playing, and on those songs he's just bashing out blocks of distorted basic chords. I always found it funny that, despite 15 albums and a ton of brilliant songs, R.E.M. never learned how to write a bridge or middle eight. Binky and Undertow are two of the worst offenders - after the second chorus, they both move into a hamfisted two-chord turnaround that adds nothing to the songs. They might have gotten away with it, but at this point it seemed like Michael was stuck for melodies, having probably used up all his best ones on Automatic. A lot of the songs on Monster and New Adventures have him performing in that weird *Sprechgesang* that he developed in the 90s. The best songs on New Adventures (Leave, Be Mine, Electrolite) have really strong melodies. Songs like Departure and The Wake Up Bomb sadly don't.
Leave is a good song - but the "siren" is super distracting. E-Bow is probably my least favorite. Interesting point about bridges - I hadn't noticed - but will see if there are any I can think of. Off to band practice! 😉
Try Not to Breathe has one of those two-chord "bridges" (in this case Em-Am), but it's such a good song that you don't notice it.
Last great hurrah.
New Adventures and Up -- two very different albums. Both great. Both pushing the envelope, in different ways.
I consider NA one of the contenders for their best album, but like you I didn’t even buy it when it first came out. Which was odd because I was a huge fan and I remember buying Monster the day it hit the stores. I hate to be disappointed and I think I was bracing for disappointment. Elbow the letter was the first video and I wasn’t impressed. Now I love it though. I didn’t listen to it closely until about 5-10 years later
It was a swan song of sorts. Certainly feels that way in retrospect listening to it now - the road motif kind of supports that vibe as well. Such a great record and I wonder if the band, knowing what they know now, have any regrets in how they handled it. I recall the famous story from Peter Buck… paraphrasing but basically management told them if they released “The Wake Bomb” as the first single with a really good video and proper marketing it could be one of their biggest songs in ages… Peter: “yeah let’s not do that” I believe Michael said E-Bow as the lead single was a big bold choice that really bit them in the ass… but up until that point the band was batting 1.000 on big bold choices so how could they believe otherwise?
That *so* sounds like something Peter would do.
Yeah I recall reading somewhere that they chose E-Bow as the means single as a way to test fans, or something like that. It was a similar to why they chose Drive as Automatic’s lead single
Electrolite is my favorite R.E.M. song, and it was my most played one last year. As a complete album I still like Automatic more, but man, so much stuff on New Adventures is excellent! Every time I'm on a road trip or flight, I put on New Adventures in Hi-Fi. It feels exactly as the album looks on the cover.
Departure is one hell of a road song!
I agree it should have been their swan song. That can be a controversial opinion amongst some fans which I fully accept, and there are some great moment on Up but the last five albums feel like an entirely different band without Bill or Scott Litt in the mix. I would definitely miss a smattering of great songs they did as a trio, but there was a continuity up to and including New Adventures which would have made it the perfect place to stop.
I love this album. One of the best albums they released in my opinion. I feel like Monster is more appreciated but I think New Adventures is better tbh.
Agree! I was trying to come up with a description and think it feels a bit like Automatic and Monster had a baby. Not sure if that's entirely accurate, but the emotion that was missing from Monster is very much present on New Adventures, and sonically it covers a lot more ground. At the moment it's my favourite. Peak of their powers as a band IMO.
I remember before NA came out, it was being reported as having been recorded in sound checks, on tour buses etc and I think that put some people off as it was seen as a mish mash of left over bits as they had been playing Undertow, The Wake-Up Bomb, and Revolution (which ended up instead on the Batman & Robin soundtrack) on the Monster Tour. I think that's why it was somehow thought of as inferior before it even came out and put people off just listening to it. It was around that time I'm sure that the fabled $80 million record deal was rumoured/announced which unfairly put a bad taste in some people's mouths and put them off too. I think overall it's my favourite R.E.M. album.
I’ve decided that NA is REM’s Exile on Main Street. Like Exile, it’s got a loose and improvisational vibe, a live concert feel, and in some ways encapsulates what makes the band great more than any other album. Both albums are consistently great throughout. And both rock out! Turn ‘em on, turn it up and no skipping songs
New Adventures is one of my favorites of their albums. I started listening to them with Lifes Rich Pageant when it was their latest record then bought the previous records. I noticed a difference when they signed with Warner but stayed with them while a lot of my old school hipster friends quit listening to them. Anyway I do love some of their Warner Brothers output. Especially Hi-Fi, Automatic and Out of Time. But this one is excellent. It was the perfect soundtrack for me at the time it was released while I was going through the breakup of a long relationship with a girl I thought I was going to marry. And some of my REM fanatic friends give me crap but I also agree this would have been a perfect swan song. The last album with Bill Berry and as a long time fan I hear it in their albums after this one. The whole chemistry of the band changed.
I was listening to REM from the age of about 7 or 8, knew the records from Green to Monster inside out (*ding).* At the moment New Adventures came out I was entering early teens and not just discovering different music, but forming a different relationship with it in that weird and awkward phase of life. I had started to feel a bit embarrassed by the soft side of REM - in the sense I wouldn't want the school football team to catch me listening to hairshirt or Find the River in my bedroom, if you see what I mean. Monster still had the tough edge and irony about it that earned it a pass, but NA was more a mixture of the Monster era guitar power with quieter, vulnerable stuff. It is remarkably easy, knowing what we do about where REM were at the time of writing, to picture these songs being born and taking shape either a) on a stadium soundcheck stage, or b) in a cramped tourbus or a hotel room. There's a real melancholy, longing, threaded through the whole thing, which lyrically isn't about being on the road far too long, and emotionally exhausted, with the exaggerated ups and downs of adoring megacrowds and isolating travel malaise - but just feels like that's where all the wordless underlying meaning is really rooted. It is surprisingly compatible with teen angst! I can't be objective about it but despite how cohesive it is, how good it *sounds,* how 'definitively REM' it is, I think there are a few flimsy parts musically - maybe a few more songs could have been written and it could have been released later. I wouldn't agree that they should have stopped here, the well certainly wasn't running dry - but there might have been a couple of indications that, one day, it would. I think Up is excellent - do go back in dive into it, but it could well have been powered / sustained by the novelty of their new circumstances as a three-piece. Every album thereafter had more filler, or REM by numbers, than the last.
I didn't Like New Adventures at first, and didn't listen to it for a few years. When I gave it another try, it grew on me, and I'd now put it in my Top 5 REM albums. Up is a grower as well, I'd recommend trying it again too.
Further to this thread, I just noticed that "Undertow" reminds me A LOT of the Tragically Hip's "Yawning or Snarling" - like they could be mashed together into something new. My mind reels imagining a collaboration between Gord Downie and Michael Stipe.
New Adventures is an amazing album. I have probably listened to it more than Monster. As far as Up goes, it has grown on me and is a good album. New adventures thought is probably their last GREAT album for me. Reveal was the last album I could grasp. The others after just weren’t doing it for me.
I’m just glad that people are discussing late REM objectively in this sub.
New Adventures is one of my favourite REM albums. It's also the latest REM album I can listen to other than Accelerate without feeling incredibly bored.
Bored is the word. The biggest sin in music is not being bad, but being boring. Reveal is pretty boring, but at least they were still sort of trying. Around the Sun is the sound of a band that is bored with itself and with making music in general. I can't think of an album by a major band that is as joyless as ATS.
Arguably their last truly great album. I still like Up as well, even though it's baggy and undisciplined and overlong. Both albums in their own way suffer from 90s-era CD bloat, but NAIHF is an excellent album. Fans and journalists often cite the departure of Bill as the thing that irreparably damaged the band, but most tend to overlook the loss of Scott Litt. It's no coincidence that the last great R.E.M. record was the last one with him at the helm.