Yesterday, the esteemed Matthew Perpetua of Fluxblog gushed about his love for REM, stating that "Together, these men created one of the finest catalogs in all of pop music, including several songs that I am certain will remain part of the public conciousness for many decades to come," and posted a stirring live version of Life and How to Live It.
I'm with him. For me, during the Bill Berry years, each new R.E.M. release was like a feast of meat sent to relieve me of the dull manna that was 90% of everyday radio. Their entire I.R.S. catalog, plus Green, Out of Time, Automatic for the People, and select songs from each additional record from WB are required listening.
This song is not. It's a lot of fun, though. REM adds a lot of twang and ironic glee to their live version of Velvet Underground's very dark After Hours.
REM - After Hours (Live Velvet Underground Cover) (mp3)
And here are a few Velvet Underground versions for your very own After Hours EP.
After Hours (from Velvet Underground)
After Hours (alternate closet mix from Peel Slowly and See)
After Hours (live from the Family Dog in San Francisco)
Lou Reed once said that After Hours is a song too innocent for him to sing. He did, though, and you can hear it on Live at Max's Kansas City (Deluxe Edition).
4 comments:
rrrrt! (screeching halt)...How many full REM CDs have the naysayers listened to in the last 10 years? They've made 11 full lengths in addition to a B-Sides that can stand up to any proper full-length album, and only two of those are weak. It's kind of like saying The Ramones have not put anything really good out for the last 10 years, and they so they suck. Or how long did Dylan not put stuff out that nobody liked? Almost 2 decades. In the 80's a lot of people said that he sucked. Remember this classic two-star album? Me neither. Or how about this great one? Me neither. But he doesn't suck, because he left a body of work that will stay with us as long as rock is alive. And he did start to make good music again. It's like this: We know they've got it in them. They only have 2 weak albums. All of their IRS stuff and two of their WB albums are CLASSICS. You can't really say it's time to put down the mandolins. That would be like telling Tom Wolfe to put down the pen because people didn't like his last novel, or telling Lucas to forget about Episode 3, he sucks because the last 2 movies were mediocre.
Their last couple of albums got mediocre reviews, so they're definitely not untouchable to criticism.
All that said...
I miss the old REM!!!
I haven't listened to much REM music (although I like their cover of Iggy's "Passenger"), but I listened to their cover of 'After Hours' for about 10 seconds before switching to Velvet Underground.
Well, you know, you just have to listen to their old stuff. A good place to start is their IRS best of album, "Eponymous," before they signed their huge deal with WB.
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