Michael Stipe: All-Time Ranking (1 Viewer)

[Apple Jack]

Michael Stipe has claimed that he did not even write the whole lyric down, that he "just had a piece of paper with a few words. I sang it and I walked out." The following day, the hastily improvised take was deemed good enough and it was not re-recorded.[1] Peter Buck has gone even further to say that "it's exactly what was on his mind that day. It was real." Stipe has said at concerts that it is his favorite R.E.M. song.[2]

From wiki

Someone from the FFA turned me on to Country Feedback. Easily one of my favorite songs of all time. Incredibly powerful and beautiful

Wow, that clip led me to this, which I was there for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4VfQBDoX6E

I imagine there are publishers who prohibit it, but it'd be nice if all the Bridge shows could see proper DVD releases with the school as beneficiary.

 

[Bruce Dickinson]

Disagree. In the mid 90's he was one of the best there was. Voted really great.

REM 1984-1987 = great

REM 1988-today = pretty terrible

You're hardly the first or last in the 50-199 demographic who claims R.E.M. died when they went they left I.R.S. Records, but excluding Murmur from R.E.M.'s "great" period is provocative.

 

[Bruce Dickinson]

I'm of the unpopular opinion that I celebrate REM's entire catalogue. My favorite songs are Fall on Me, The One I Love, and Don't go back to Rockville. So quasi older stuff. But I dig a ton of the Out of Time, Automatic, and Monster stuff. Try Not to Breathe! And Up is a very underrated album.

I have nothing to say about Stipe. Just wanted to defend all of REM's work.

I like how they kept challenging themselves in their later albums. Out Of Time through New Adventures In Hi-Fi seems to get dismissed by early adopters of R.E.M., but those albums are fantastic and Stipe especially deserves props for actively trying to not remake earlier work.

 

[Wrigley]

highly underrated

 

[YSR]

Love R.E.M. Agree that they were way better early on, and that's what I tend to listen to. But, man, they were a huge part of when I first started listening to music, thanks to my older brother's influence.... Probably my favorite band, just due to listening to them during my formative years.

All that said, not sure how I would rank Stipe as a true front man having, sadly, never seen them live.

 

[Jack White]

Voted all-time.

Of course, I'm biased as REM was my favorite band for about 10 years.

Everything up through Monster was great.

I'll give you two things I love about Michael Stipe and REM:

One, Stipe never wrote the self-indulgent autobiographical material that lesser artists resorted to. All of his songs are stories.

Two, REM made a decision at the very beginning that all four members would share all song writing credits, even though Stipe was the main songwriter. This decision precluded any pissing matches over credit and money. Smart move, and they all became filthy rich.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Disagree. In the mid 90's he was one of the best there was. Voted really great.

REM 1984-1987 = great

REM 1988-today = pretty terrible

You're hardly the first or last in the 50-199 demographic who claims R.E.M. died when they went they left I.R.S. Records, but excluding Murmur from R.E.M.'s "great" period is provocative.

Didn't mean to exclude Murmur. It's one of my favorite albums from that era. I meant to put 1982 instead of 1984. Chronic Town is great too.

 

[Short Corner]

Michael Stipe has claimed that he did not even write the whole lyric down, that he "just had a piece of paper with a few words. I sang it and I walked out." The following day, the hastily improvised take was deemed good enough and it was not re-recorded.[1] Peter Buck has gone even further to say that "it's exactly what was on his mind that day. It was real." Stipe has said at concerts that it is his favorite R.E.M. song.[2]

From wiki

Someone from the FFA turned me on to Country Feedback. Easily one of my favorite songs of all time. Incredibly powerful and beautiful

What publishers? The studios usually have no rights extending beyond what was recorded in the studio.

 

[jfranco77]

I'm of the unpopular opinion that I celebrate REM's entire catalogue. My favorite songs are Fall on Me, The One I Love, and Don't go back to Rockville. So quasi older stuff. But I dig a ton of the Out of Time, Automatic, and Monster stuff. Try Not to Breathe! And Up is a very underrated album.

I have nothing to say about Stipe. Just wanted to defend all of REM's work.

I like how they kept challenging themselves in their later albums. Out Of Time through New Adventures In Hi-Fi seems to get dismissed by early adopters of R.E.M., but those albums are fantastic and Stipe especially deserves props for actively trying to not remake earlier work.

Two amazing albums.

That said, I voted "very good"

I never thought of REM as "Michael Stipe and some other dudes" like The Doors or Pearl Jam or Queen. I feel like all 4 members had a lot to contribute. OK, maybe not so much Berry, but I always thought Mills and Buck had a lot to do with their success too. Sometimes Stipe was amazing and sometimes he was just trying to fit in or even stay out of the way. Not every lead singer can do that, which makes him really good.

 

[Apple Jack]

Michael Stipe has claimed that he did not even write the whole lyric down, that he "just had a piece of paper with a few words. I sang it and I walked out." The following day, the hastily improvised take was deemed good enough and it was not re-recorded.[1] Peter Buck has gone even further to say that "it's exactly what was on his mind that day. It was real." Stipe has said at concerts that it is his favorite R.E.M. song.[2]

From wiki

Someone from the FFA turned me on to Country Feedback. Easily one of my favorite songs of all time. Incredibly powerful and beautiful

Somebody owns the songs and gets a cut anytime that song is sold. Studio, live, or otherwise. For example, Pearl Jam owns most of their music, but it's possible they gave away ownership of the Ten songs in order to get the deal and promo. They might not own Jeremy, Alive, etc. Meaning that if that's the case, if they performed those songs at Bridge and it was officially released, the label would need to give the okay and royalties would need to be paid if the label wants. The "studio" is irrelevant, unless you meant the label.

 

[Apple Jack]

Voted all-time.

Of course, I'm biased as REM was my favorite band for about 10 years.

Everything up through Monster was great.

I'll give you two things I love about Michael Stipe and REM:

One, Stipe never wrote the self-indulgent autobiographical material that lesser artists resorted to. All of his songs are stories.

Two, REM made a decision at the very beginning that all four members would share all song writing credits, even though Stipe was the main songwriter. This decision precluded any pissing matches over credit and money. Smart move, and they all became filthy rich.

Nonsense from every angle.

 

[Tom Servo]

Regret never seeing them. A few years back, they played a few miles from my house. Granted I had two 6-month olds, but still

Haiku?

 

[[icon]]

All that said, not sure how I would rank Stipe as a true front man having, sadly, never seen them live.

They have this thing called the internet, now. It has these moving pictures that have sound on it. It's pretty cool.

 

[Bruce Dickinson]

Disagree. In the mid 90's he was one of the best there was. Voted really great.

REM 1984-1987 = great

REM 1988-today = pretty terrible

You're hardly the first or last in the 50-199 demographic who claims R.E.M. died when they went they left I.R.S. Records, but excluding Murmur from R.E.M.'s "great" period is provocative.

Didn't mean to exclude Murmur. It's one of my favorite albums from that era. I meant to put 1982 instead of 1984. Chronic Town is great too.

Fair enough.

So, why the back end cutoff of the "great" era after Document and before Green? I don't doubt sincerity here - your opinion of R.E.M.'s discography is a popular one. I happen to be a big fan of R.E.M.'s catalog through New Adventures In Hi-Fi and am curious about why some folks like R.E.M.'s early albums but not their middle ones.

 

[Jack White]

Voted all-time.

Of course, I'm biased as REM was my favorite band for about 10 years.

Everything up through Monster was great.

I'll give you two things I love about Michael Stipe and REM:

One, Stipe never wrote the self-indulgent autobiographical material that lesser artists resorted to. All of his songs are stories.

Two, REM made a decision at the very beginning that all four members would share all song writing credits, even though Stipe was the main songwriter. This decision precluded any pissing matches over credit and money. Smart move, and they all became filthy rich.

Nonsense from every angle.

If so, then Michael Stipe is a liar.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Disagree. In the mid 90's he was one of the best there was. Voted really great.

REM 1984-1987 = great

REM 1988-today = pretty terrible

You're hardly the first or last in the 50-199 demographic who claims R.E.M. died when they went they left I.R.S. Records, but excluding Murmur from R.E.M.'s "great" period is provocative.

Didn't mean to exclude Murmur. It's one of my favorite albums from that era. I meant to put 1982 instead of 1984. Chronic Town is great too.

Fair enough.

So, why the back end cutoff of the "great" era after Document and before Green? I don't doubt sincerity here - your opinion of R.E.M.'s discography is a popular one. I happen to be a big fan of R.E.M.'s catalog through New Adventures In Hi-Fi and am curious about why some folks like R.E.M.'s early albums but not their middle ones.

Document showed some serious signs of the band moving in a different direction. Green was where they lost me. I just wasn't digging their sound any more.

 

[[icon]]

Stipe never wrote the self-indulgent autobiographical material that lesser artists resorted to.

 

[General Malaise]

Disagree. In the mid 90's he was one of the best there was. Voted really great.

REM 1984-1987 = great

REM 1988-today = pretty terrible

You're hardly the first or last in the 50-199 demographic who claims R.E.M. died when they went they left I.R.S. Records, but excluding Murmur from R.E.M.'s "great" period is provocative.

Didn't mean to exclude Murmur. It's one of my favorite albums from that era. I meant to put 1982 instead of 1984. Chronic Town is great too.

Fair enough.

So, why the back end cutoff of the "great" era after Document and before Green? I don't doubt sincerity here - your opinion of R.E.M.'s discography is a popular one. I happen to be a big fan of R.E.M.'s catalog through New Adventures In Hi-Fi and am curious about why some folks like R.E.M.'s early albums but not their middle ones.

Document showed some serious signs of the band moving in a different direction. Green was where they lost me. I just wasn't digging their sound any more.

Radio and MTV began to overplay them on Document with "The One I Love" and "End of the World"....both very good songs, but if I compiled a list of my favorites, they aren't cracking top 15 for me. When Green came out, "Stand" made them popular with all the popular kids and that's where it went south for me. Prior to that, REM was a band for the 80s kids who didn't like most of the drek on the radio. But "Stand" is the song that Dallas girls with big poofy hair and daddy's BMW jammed out to saying things like "OMG, this new band REM is, like, totally awesome!". Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

Outside of "Shiny Happy People" I really liked "Out of Time". That was my senior year in HS. Once I got to college, I found new music everywhere and kind of outgrew REM in my mind. I'm still laughing at Abe calling their peak the Mid 90s....

 

[Brony]

Thought it was really cool that they wrote the opening credits song for Get A Life.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Thought it was really cool that they wrote the opening credits song for Get A Life.

Almost as good as Pixies doing the Lover's Theme From Fight Club.

 

[Jack White]

Stipe never wrote the self-indulgent autobiographical material that lesser artists resorted to.

Bollen: Were you trying to move to New York, or just coming to get a look?

Stipe: It was 1979. I had to experience the city. I went and saw the singer from Suicide, Alan Vega. I loved that band so much. We saw him perform at this little club. There was this beautiful girl who took money at the door, who didn't speak very much English. And there was a guitar player from Texas who was blond and looked like a heroin addict. Everything was so romantic and sexy. I got on the subway and got lost and went up to Harlem. When I got on the subway, I realized that this is where Suicide comes from. To sit on the subway and hear it in 3-D, and not just from a Charles Bronson movie, but to actually sit on the subway and hear the sound, I thought, "That's Suicide. That's where they come from. Now I get it."

The city offered so much to me. It was only years later that I ended up having the experience that led me to write one of the only autobiographical songs of my entire career as a songwriter in the opening track of Collapse Into Now, called "Discoverer." It's a song of discovery. It's about realizing that the city offers you this unbelievable potential and opportunity-all the things you are looking for in your teens and your twenties. That's what New York offered me. The lyrics are: "Floating across Houston, This is where I am, I see the city rise up tall, The opportunities and possibilities, I have never felt so called, Remember the vodka espresso, Night of discovery."

Bollen: These lyrics are about your first days in New York, floating across Houston Street?

Stipe: It was years later that this moment actually happened. It's the feeling itself that took me 25 years to put into a lyric. It's the same as Lester Bangs and the L.B. dream. It took eight years for that to make it into a song. That surprised me, because I am not an autobiographical writer. I'll take little elements here and there from things that I've actually experienced-counting eyelashes on a sleeping beauty, for example. That's a moment that actually happened and I wrote it into a song called "At My Most Beautiful." But the song itself isn't about the guy whose eyelashes I was counting. It was just a moment I took.

Bollen: For some reason, I always thought your songs were autobiographical.

Stipe: No. I watch people. I'm a voyeur. God knows you've seen me in action. I sit and watch. At its best, the lyrics and the work come from some instinctual insight, and then you're just trying to edit yourself.

 

[General Malaise]

Stipe's net worth is $75 Million. Not bad.

 

[Apple Jack]

most writers think they are above autobiographic writing. here's a hint...writing is inherently autobiographical. you are putting forth a perspective that is informed by you and your experiences. that's why that's ridiculous. but even more ridiculous, and what i was commenting on primarily, was your comical air ball at trying to turn your nose up at other writers who maybe write a bit more obviously about themselves are on spec "lesser." Your "hot take!", as usual, is off the mark.

 

[Otis]

Bottom 5?

 

[Apple Jack]

Stipe's net worth is $75 Million. Not bad.

dude needed a narcotic addiction something fierce

 

[Jack White]

most writers think they are above autobiographic writing. here's a hint...writing is inherently autobiographical. you are putting forth a perspective that is informed by you and your experiences. that's why that's ridiculous. but even more ridiculous, and what i was commenting on primarily, was your comical air ball at trying to turn your nose up at other writers who maybe write a bit more obviously about themselves are on spec "lesser." Your "hot take!", as usual, is off the mark.

Comical airball . . . I like that turn of phrase.

If you've read the entire thread, you know that I already admitted my bias by stating REM was my favorite band for 10 years. It stands to reason that I would consider other artists in the "lesser" category.

Next time I post, however, I will try to remove all flair and style in the interest of expressing facts only.

 

[Brony]

As songwriter, I think he's great. As frontman and lead vocals, he's OK to very good.

 

[Eephus]

Stipe's net worth is $75 Million. Not bad.

dude needed a narcotic addiction something fierce

The band signed a huge contract with Warner Bros at the peak of their popularity (and the peak of record industry revenues) in 1996. Their albums sold well after that but they didn't have a platinum album after New Adventures. Timing is everything.

 

[Apple Jack]

most writers think they are above autobiographic writing. here's a hint...writing is inherently autobiographical. you are putting forth a perspective that is informed by you and your experiences. that's why that's ridiculous. but even more ridiculous, and what i was commenting on primarily, was your comical air ball at trying to turn your nose up at other writers who maybe write a bit more obviously about themselves are on spec "lesser." Your "hot take!", as usual, is off the mark.

Comical airball . . . I like that turn of phrase.

If you've read the entire thread, you know that I already admitted my bias by stating REM was my favorite band for 10 years. It stands to reason that I would consider other artists in the "lesser" category.

Next time I post, however, I will try to remove all flair and style in the interest of expressing facts only.

i enjoyed the post, but that one line bothered me. a lot of bad writers are blatantly self-indulgent in the way you mention. in fact, most are. sophomorific. but plenty of people go down into their own neurosis and demons and come out with great stuff. Will Oldham's I See a Darkness is one that fits what you said and is one of the most chilling songs ever penned.

The great irony in his comment is that fancying yourself as above autobiographical writing is just about the biggest pat on one's own back a writer can do. That's something "lesser" people do. Its not a good look.

 

[Jack White]

most writers think they are above autobiographic writing. here's a hint...writing is inherently autobiographical. you are putting forth a perspective that is informed by you and your experiences. that's why that's ridiculous. but even more ridiculous, and what i was commenting on primarily, was your comical air ball at trying to turn your nose up at other writers who maybe write a bit more obviously about themselves are on spec "lesser." Your "hot take!", as usual, is off the mark.

Comical airball . . . I like that turn of phrase.

If you've read the entire thread, you know that I already admitted my bias by stating REM was my favorite band for 10 years. It stands to reason that I would consider other artists in the "lesser" category.

Next time I post, however, I will try to remove all flair and style in the interest of expressing facts only.

i enjoyed the post, but that one line bothered me. a lot of bad writers are blatantly self-indulgent in the way you mention. in fact, most are. sophomorific. but plenty of people go down into their own neurosis and demons and come out with great stuff. Will Oldham's I See a Darkness is one that fits what you said and is one of the most chilling songs ever penned.

The great irony in his comment is that fancying yourself as above autobiographical writing is just about the biggest pat on one's own back a writer can do. That's something "lesser" people do. Its not a good look.

I don't see anything in his quotes as fancying himself above autobiographical writers. I'm the one who used the term "lesser writers," and, again, that is merely my opinion.

In Stipes' case, I think he looked at himself more as a storyteller. I think it was an artistic choice on his part. And, as you say, it's certainly not the only way to do it.

You made a good point earlier about every writer using autobiographical elements to one extent or another. I think there is a parallel to this among actors. A lot of people think acting is about "pretending to be be someone else." But I think the best actors are really just channeling themselves through fictional characters. It's one of the reasons a lot of people will say, "He's not acting, he's just playing himself," as if that is by definition an insult. It's not.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Pretty sure "Driver 8" was about Stipe's time as an engineer on the Georgia Central Railway.

 

[General Malaise]

Pretty sure "Driver 8" was about Stipe's time as an engineer on the Georgia Central Railway.

Also, "Cuyahoga" was about the time he set the Cleveland river on fire.

 

[glock]

Michael Stipe has claimed that he did not even write the whole lyric down, that he "just had a piece of paper with a few words. I sang it and I walked out." The following day, the hastily improvised take was deemed good enough and it was not re-recorded.[1] Peter Buck has gone even further to say that "it's exactly what was on his mind that day. It was real." Stipe has said at concerts that it is his favorite R.E.M. song.[2]

From wiki

Someone from the FFA turned me on to Country Feedback. Easily one of my favorite songs of all time. Incredibly powerful and beautiful

Greatest. Music. Video.

Ever.

 

[Eephus]

Michael Stipe has claimed that he did not even write the whole lyric down, that he "just had a piece of paper with a few words. I sang it and I walked out." The following day, the hastily improvised take was deemed good enough and it was not re-recorded.[1] Peter Buck has gone even further to say that "it's exactly what was on his mind that day. It was real." Stipe has said at concerts that it is his favorite R.E.M. song.[2]

From wiki

Someone from the FFA turned me on to Country Feedback. Easily one of my favorite songs of all time. Incredibly powerful and beautiful

Getting clearance from the artists is the likely problem, not their publishing houses. Modern festivals like Glastonbury and Coachella get all the necessary video clearances in advance. These typically are for a limited number of screenings and exclude commercial DVD or theatrical releases. I doubt this was in place during the early days of the Bridge Concerts. Chasing down retroactive clearance would probably be more bother than the Youngs would want to deal with.

This was the main reason why it took so long for Live Aid to be released on DVD and why some artists (most notably Led Zeppelin) are absent from it.

 

[dickey moe]

Very good who once was on the cusp as really great.

 

[[icon]]

Wow, that clip led me to this, which I was there for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4VfQBDoX6E

I imagine there are publishers who prohibit it, but it'd be nice if all the Bridge shows could see proper DVD releases with the school as beneficiary.

Greatest. Music. Video.

Ever.

Wait...wat?

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Neil Young is pretty meh.

Yeah, shocking.

 

[Tiger Fan]

REM's last effort, Collapse Into Now, is extremely extremely underrated.  Been listening to it alot lately.

It Happened Today and Oh My Heart are two phenomenal songs