Cool News
R.E.M. LIVE Autographs and DVD/CD Giveaway Contest... for the Musically Inclined!!!
Hey folks, Harry here -- Here's an interesting prize to give out. Got contacted by Warner Bros asking if I would do a contest for the R.E.M. LIVE CD-DVD set that recently came out... and in addition they gave me 12" by 12" album sized ads autographed by Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck. Here's the prizes:
In the past we've had all manners of contests on Aint It Cool News - we've had Stop-Motion animated shorts, Live action Trailers, Artwork, Trivia - all sorts of stuff, but I'm relatively sure that we've never had a musically related contest. So here we go. This is what we're going to do.
Create a rocking REM-esque AINT IT COOL theme song. It can be comedic or heartfelt, it can rage or praise talkbackers, it can be whatever you think of when you read AINT IT COOL. There are multiple sets of prizes here - and at the end of the day - possibly the best reward will be having the song heard by the readership of AICN with a link to your homepage. Your band, your own music page getting exposure. SO how long do you have? From now til November 7th.
Submit the link to your song in MP3 format to this address: HK at AintItCool.Com and who knows who will be listening to the end results - but I will listen to all submissions.
Most of all - Have fun...
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+ Expand All
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You look so very weird. Love R.E.M. though, always have and always will. My first ever concert that didn't involve Ninja Turtles was their final stop of the Monster Tour in '95.
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Not to be self-congratulatory or anything...
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Somebody had to say it, sorry. And may I say that their song "Stand" should be used as torture for captured Al-Qaida loons, it's the worst "song" ever created by the hand of mankind.
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my favorite band of all time. OF ALL TIME. And I can't play a musical instrument to save my life. Sigh.
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Peter Buck? Berry doesn't even play on this
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They don't get enough props these days
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Damn right ... one of the first bands I ever remember listening to that I'm still not embarrassed about today. I was 9 when I first heard them and still in elementary school when I bought Monster on cassette. (OK, so I hopped on at a relatively bad time. I was 10.) Dad told me the band got their start less than an hour from where we lived, in Athens. Now, that town is better known among America's youth for producing Ryan Seacrest. How the times have changed.
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Sorry Harry, but REM has sucked for the last 12 years, no question. As soon as Mike Stipe decided he was a complete flame thrower they've been in the toilet. When the drummer had a stroke or whatever they started using drum machines and boy did it show.
Now with that said, I have to admit their concert at the woodlands pavilion here in houston back in 96 was awesome. after that however; suck city.
that is all. -
REM is. I'm just saying.
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Numerous times. I saw them on the Monster tour. Radiohead opened for them. Stipe introduced them by saying, "I've been listening to some of the things they are working on back there and it's pretty special. I just thought I'd tell you that." He left and Radiohead proceeded to play through most OK Computer before it's release. Naturally, the douche next to me kept shouting "Fake Plastic Trees!" and "Creeeeeeeep!"
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Don't feel bad...Monster is actually a great album. I'm sure you've had it sitting aside for years. Try revisiting it...its aged well. Their one misfire for me is most of Reveal. Only two or three tracks on that thing make it to my playlist.
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...but I haven't purchased an album of theirs since AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE. Seems I rarely listen to them anymore. When I do, I never listen to anything post GREEN. Their music just doesn't connect with me now and it all feels rather listless.Having said that, LIFE'S RICH PAGEANT would probably still make my Top All-Time Favorite Albums List.
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I thought this was "cool" news.
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...and send it to ten years ago, when I might have actually given a crap about REM.
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Virgin snakes and aeroplanes, and Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
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being raped with a chainsaw...
would have about as much musical value as anything REM have ever put out -
annnnnnd.... eat a dick while you're at it. Oh and Shag-- you're the reason the music industry sucks today.
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... who can forget about Chris Peterson (Chris Elliott) in the cult series "Get a life"???
But REM has lost it. They haven't done anything really good in years. -
and are thus deserving of their place in American musical history. One of the truly original bands - even if you don't like them, you have to admit that no one else sounds like REM. Maybe I'll break out Life's Rich Pageant in honor of this story.
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I second your comment. I picked up "Murmur" in 1984 (yeah I'm old), and it was transformative. Best band from 1983-93 or so, hands down. Yes, their time has passed, and yes, some of the more famous songs are annoying or have been overplayed, but damn, what a run.
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I remember picking up Eponymous and realizing there were a good 20 songs that could or should have been included on it. That is when you realize how great they were for such a long time.
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This is frakin amazing. Can I enter these guys on their behalf?
http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=EEKVJZa_gdE -
This is a really generous gesture. You can thank the band's fan club at lordmillsey@yahoo.com. They respond to emails with special offers and stuff.
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I like R.E.M.'s earlier stuff (read: the years with I.R.S. records) but they haven't made a CD I'd want to buy since 1992.
...and yes they were HUGE on the alternative music scene... actually back then it was more often referred to as college music... but I don't know if I can agree that they "invented" anything. Especially since their most well known songs bear a striking resemblance to The Byrds.
So... perhaps R.E.M. invented a certain '80's/ alternative type of persona; but musically speaking they owe their sound to Roger McGuinn. -
But I don't think you could pay me enough to try and make an AICN theme song.
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you're welcome for the correction
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...you still wouldn't cite R.E.M. as an influence.
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By declaring I saw R.E.M. in a tiny club in Franfurt during their tour for Fables of the Reconstruction and if you thought they were great on Monster you have no idea what it was like in their prime. Jokers before the show crushed us good by telling us that Stipe and Mills were in the bar playing pool before the show. Still have the cool t-shirt.
That being said they should have quit when Bill did. Seeing Stipe now wandering around in his Col. Sanders suit and scary-bald head hurts me in the spot this great band will always live.
Please stop guys, you're like Curley Joe era 3 Stooges, Moe's all old and puffy and it's just painful watching Larry get slapped again. -
They've kind of lost the plot, but I can't complain too much they did give me thirteen years of great music. In other words, I agree malificus, they should have quit when Bill Berry did. I remember watching "I Love the 80's" and the lameass from Anthrax said, in his "metal" way, that REM are nerd rock and they'll always be nerd rock. That may be true, but dude, you named your band fucking Anthrax! and you're growing a rat tail out of your chin! Pot calling the kettle black if you ask me.
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that's mills real email...heh.
tell him what ya think!
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looks like a fag, acts like a fag, gotta be a fag
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hes so bad
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Oct 26, 2007 7:59:44 PM CDT
Up, Monster, Document, Hi-fi, Murmur are my favourites
by performingmonkey
OK, I think almost everything they've put out is great (Around The Sun unfortunately turned out to be one of their worst moments) but Up in particular is an amazing piece of work. Something quite different from them due to Bill Berry's departure. It contains Stipe's best vocals. Monster remains one of my favourite records of all time. I don't get how people can't love tracks like I Took Your Name, Circus Envy, King Of Comedy, I Don't Sleep I Dream etc. It got slated at the time because it wasn't another acoustic fest like Automatic For The People (which IS a great album but by no means their best - Everybody Hurts and Man On The Moon are overplayed and overrated, I much prefer other tracks on there like Sweetness Follows, Ignoreland, Monty Got A Raw Deal). And what can you say about the early days? Sublime.
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That's Craptastic!
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Are you fucking STUPID?!
Have you ever heard of Devo, Husker Du, or ANY punk band from the 1970's? (punk was the first true "alternative" to mainstream rock n' roll) For fucks sake, I call myself the MASTER OF NONSENSE and even I make more sense than you! -
I will never forgive them.
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They wrote At My Most Beautiful, one of the greatest songs ever, if they never make another good record again no one can take that away from them. The song idea might be fun, I'm thinking a chorus line along the line of "everybody's fat' (copywright me bitches) sung in almost falsetto register. Perhaps I will dust off the strat and have a go. Or not.
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That depends on what you want to call alternative rock. I suppose you call it punk or New Wave, judging by your post and the examples you cite. I don't. Now shut the fuck up.
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Alt rock is also commonly known as college radio, which started in the early 80s, at least in the opinion of nearly every rock critic with a couple of firing synapses. It does not equate to punk, which was an entirely different and earlier movement. But if you want to slap your own labels on everything and then get all pissy, I guess that's your right. Now resume drooling.
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a band who has created one of the few purely unique sounds in rock music in the past twenty years, when they themselves have done jack shit with their lives. REM rules, eat it bitches!
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Murmur is on a very short list of albums that I could not live without. Fables of the Reconstruction is possibly my favorite album of all time. Reckoning and Lifes Rich Pageant are great too... those four albums alone cement REM as one of the best bands ever. Their recent output has been less awe-inspiring, and I think they need to get out of pop and move back to their rustic, strange, ambiguous roots.
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try to run with it.
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bubble gum garbage
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Oct 27, 2007 2:18:33 PM CDT
Any way you slice it, Viper needs to switch to Doublemint
by librerarian
Those albums must be hard on the teeth. Heh.
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I need some new coasters for my coffee table.
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...and screw this sellout contest! Good lord. How much did they pay you for this? Because we all know how much you've all professed your love of REM over the last 10 years. I swear these guys are the luckiest MF's on the planet. Because they've never been more than average, at BEST!
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The only thing REM invented was .... oh, wait, I'm sorry. That would be NOTHING!!!! Lucky, lucky, lucky. Mumblin' ass singer, weak musicianship, other than bass player guy. Fugly. Bad dressers. Shiny happy people? Bleh! This is, just, ugh. Clearly the biggest AICN sell out ever.
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"Umm, he's nightswimming."
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of the justice league.FUCK THIS GUY IS DIRECTING FRED CLAUS WHY WOULD THEY GIVE HIM FLASH WB YOU FUCKIN UP
http://www.superherohype.com/n ews/topnews.php?id=6456 -
what i meant was david dobkin to direct a falsh movie, will be a spinoff of the justice leauge movie and take out the spaces in the link
http://www.superherohype.com/news/topnews.php?id=6456 -
in 1999. IN my concert going years, which includes Crowded House, Peter Gabriel, james brown and the red hot chilli peppers and more. If I was to pick two of the best bands ever I have to say REM come out on top with Crowded a very close 2nd. I worked near enough to where REM played that summer and during the morning they were doing the sound check and I knew they were going to be awesome. and they were.
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Plenty of other band out there with much better writing chops and performing chops; Dream Theater and Spock's Beard just to name a few
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... REM is like a talentless U2, or Dave Mathews, 10-15 years ago. Was very popular with the college crowd at one time
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REM? Dream Theater is a band I'll put on with some friends to laugh at. They're the Ed Wood of musicians. Incredibly cheesy and enjoyable despite themselves, not because of their talents. Just because REM was popular with the college crowd at one time does not mean they're anything like Dave Matthews. Try listening to an album before you judge. By the way, "Nightswimming" is one of the greatest songs ever written.
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R.E.M. invented nothing? Atrocious bubble gum garbage? CREATED FUCKING EMO???? Jesus Christ, do yourselves a favor and go listen to all their albums from 1983 to 1992. Educate yourselves, fools.
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rbatty, you actually say they are in anyway superior to Dream Theater? Ask any musician and he will tell you otherwise. The keyboardist alone has absolute pitch, and was admitted to Julliard at age 9. Most of the other members had scholarships to the Berklee college of music, and have been recognized in their respective intrumental circles as some of the very top players alive! Your comparison is like saying Pink is more groundbreaking then Miles Davis
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Like I said, untalented version of U2 or Dave Matthews band. All sell to the same college market (or started out doin so), but U2 actually makes good music and Dave Matthews has outstanding musicianship, all REM has is lyrics people like, nothing outstanding musically.
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so what your saying is college radio did not exist before the early 80's?
the first time i heard the ramones was on, you guessed it, a college radio station in 1978, which by your definition makes them an alternative rock band. and since the ramones predate shitty REM by fucking YEARS then REM cannot possibly be one of the first alternative bands.
You know shit about music. stick to sucking off school children, its what you do best. -
was that a response? a comeback? You "try" to counter a point that was that I can't find being made in this talkback, then make a personal attack? Not a very logical argument, unless you are a five year old calling someone a "doo-doo head", or some such nonesense.
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great musicianship and great songwriting. Granted, Dream Theater are great musicians. You could play guitar your entire life and never be as good as them. However, they are terrible songwriters. Everything is so over-the-top cheesy I just can't help but laugh at their music, not with. My comparison to Ed Wood was off point. They're more like Michael Bay. Michael Bay's films actually take a lot of technical work. He uses a ton of cameras for each scene and uses a lot of complex special effects, but his storytelling is atrocious. Technically, the guy has talent, but as a storyteller he's shit. Likewise Dream Theater are great musicians but terrible songwriters. Just my opinion. REM rules! (at least through New Adventures, anyway).
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I just couldnt pass this opportunity and say this is the most uncoll news ever. R.e.m. are vimps. they have always sucked. They are to be recommended for a huge variety of ways to suck. I work in a record store and anyone over the age of 8 is told to leave when they request that shit. "But its so deep..." yeah, but in what? If a friend offered me a free concert ticket he would cease to be friend. I dunno what i hate the most. The deformed skull or that stupid little hat. Cant choose really, there are many moore reasons that hate those fucks.
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I suck at a keybord when i´m angry.
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anything. This post proves as much.
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... hell, I don't even know how to make an mp3. However, I do know that my best friend is the biggest R.E.M. fan in the world (we both went to UGA in Athens, GA - R.E.M.'s home). If you don't get enough entries - and from the sound of it, mostly haters here - you could give me the opportunity to give the best Christmas present of the year.
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are almost certainly better musicians than REM. Petrucci is a great guitar player--I've seen and heard him on recent G3 shows. But even though I'm a prog fan, I never did enjoy DT. Whereas many of the great prog bands like Yes can inject heart and emotion into the complex musical strains, no DT I've ever sampled showed evidence of that. It's just clinical music, technically proficient, but leaves me cold. I'm not a big REM fan, either, but I give them high props and would listen to an album of their shit over DT any day. The only real solution is to have the members of DT and REM engage in cage-match stompkata. You know it to be true.
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The band just seemed to lose it's inspiration about the time Michael Stipe lost his hair. Stipe and Sting both went the ponderous and pretentious route, and stopped having fun with music. About the same time Bono strapped on those big stupid sunglasses.
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...is possibly the stupidest things I've ever heard, lol. That's like comparing Metallica to Matchbox 20. Or Star Wars to Gone with the Wind, lol. Two totally different genres of music. And for those who say DT has no depth and is cold; listen to songs like 'The Spirit Carries On', 'Hollow Years', 'Surrounded', etc. Plenty of heart and soul in Dream Theater music, you just have to know where to look for it. Now listen to 'In the Presence of Enemies' and freaking 'Shinny Happy People' and tell me you can put these two bands in the same world, lol.
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Someone else did, and I just went with it. I like REM, but I agree "Shiney Happy People" is a pretty gay tune. When I hear the words "Shiney Happy People," I think about retarded people, which is probably an insult to retarded people, and possibly not what Michael Stipe had in mind.
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...written by a douchebag who hates the post topic beyond all rationality or comprehension--all the while completely ignoring the fact that universally entertaining works of art don't exist. It is being written in lieu of another round of trolling Usenet to relieve a deep and abiding case of self-hatred and ass-itching boredom. I hate the topic of this story, and I refuse to allow that anyone else might hold an opinion that differs from my own.
Furthermore, realizing that the topic of this story was one that I hate (indeed, hate beyond all rationality or comprehension, as I have stated), and knowing that I would find herein losers who profess NOT to hate said story topic, I could not help but take the time to chime in with my contrarian point of view and a heartyh helping of insults for those who refuse to yield to my superior worldview.
Actually though, I don't know much about the topic of this story except that I hate it. Hell, I might have chosen it randomly, as I have a complete list of negative post Mad Libs stored on my drive in the same folder as the troll posts I keep to remind myself of the good times in case Dad ever cuts my Internet service off.
I sure hope that this is enough to produce an angry response. Now excuse me while I down the two liter of Mountain Dew Game Fuel and hit Refresh over and over until someone replies. -
I did listen then, and I talked endless shit to all the people that kept trying to tell me how good they were. As has been mentioned, Buck and Mills (although I still say Mills, mostly - Buck is a barely passable strummer) wrote some nice melodies, drummer went boom bap boom bap and Stipe mumbled some incomrehensible lyrics and nothing. Then, when you could start to understand the lyrics it was like, "gah! go back to mumbling!!" They just suck. But more to the point, it's a blatent paid promotion that has very little (near nothing) to do with AICN's regular readership. Warna Brother must have paid nicely.
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You can't really compare the two. Subjective v. Objective. "heart and soul" is next to impossible to define (in any concrete/vivid terms) let alone assign neutral standards to judge by. Technicality is quite the opposite, and really one of the few standards you can objectively use to compare bands. So the argument comes down to "REM is mediocre from a technical stand point, but I like them, so they are one of the best bands of all time"; pretty absurd. I can understand "I like them" or "they are one of my favorite bands", but to claim they are one of the "best of all time" or "one of the best", or even "classic" is patently absurd!! They are at best mediocre. AS to DT and REM being different styles, they are both subgenres of rock (it's not like comparing a jazz band to a symphonic orchestra), in fact prog rock does touch on about every other style of rock. When you are talking about some of the aburdly grandious claims people are making about REM here, style is somewhat transended. If asked who is the greatest rock band of all time, the Beatles as well as Led Zep will surely be mentioned and are on totally different ends of the rock sepectrum
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