One song from this album came up on my playlist and it made me want to write something about the album. There are times when I buy popular band’s albums because I like the album at the moment. Achtung Baby made me like U2. Since buying it have bought two of their albums and forced to take one more. Rattle & Hum gives me everything I want from their older material. Zooropa is kind of sequel to Actung Baby without the magic. I also have Passengers album which is kind of spin off from Achtung Baby. U2 and Achtung Baby’s producer Brian Eno made weird soundtrack album for made up movies. And I was forced by Apple to take that one album because they thought it would be good pr move. It wasn’t.
Sometimes I start to dislike the album and band as I listen the album I bought when it was top of the charts. Stiltskin’s album is one of those and Billie Eilish is becoming one of those artists. I added Billie Eilish’s album to last year’s favorite albums list but I don’t like her music that much any more. There are many other examples too. Most of those albums I don’t like any more. Achtung Baby and other U2’s albums I bought I still like.
Then there is R.E.M.’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Only R.E.M. album I own. It is not among R.E.M.’s top albums. In fact it came after R.E.M. had released three of their top albums. Three albums before this are in top 5 of R.E.M. albums in LastFM. One of those five is compilation album. I went to check the compilation album again. I didn’t find it interesting enough to check until the end. Then went to check Automatic for the People which have couple songs I like. That I could check till the end. Checking means one and half minute pieces of songs in iTunes store.To me R.E.M.’s best of is New Adventures in Hi-Fi and couple tracks from Automatic for the People. No Losing My Religion, End of the World or Shiny Happy People to my best of R.E.M.
To me New Adventures in Hi-Fi is the album where R.E.M. got it all together. After it they lost their drummer and long time producer. They started to use more distorted guitars on previous album Monster. On this they learned how to use them and they brought best parts of Automatic for the People. To me Monster’s guitars didn’t felt right. I don’t understand why it was so popular and why those songs were big hits. On New Adventures in Hi-Fi they nailed guitar tone and playing so well their older more acoustic material feels lacking something. It doesn’t have guitars of New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
New Adventures in Hi-Fi has this weird 4 am feeling. It is hard to explain. It always make me feel like it is somewhere between 3 am and 4 am. As it is at the moment when I write this. Couldn’t get sleep so I write this now. This was published later so post’s time is not 4 am. I guess feeling comes from album being recorded partly on soundchecks of Monster tour. Four tracks were recorded in Seattle Studio. Other ten were recorded somewhere else.
You should check New Adventures in Hi-Fi even if you don’t like R.E.M. that much. It is only R.E.M. album I own. It is not like Shiny Happy People. It is one of the biggest bands at the time at their peak when every thing just worked. Not their biggest album but to me their best one by far.