R.E.M. At The BBC (compilation album) by R.E.M.

Good collection, including a dvd, featuring a wealth of radio sessions and live recordings. Can't really go wrong if you're an R.E.M fanatic. Anyway the previous comment complains about certain songs cropping up too often. Well, these are live recordings and those songs (Losing my religion/Man on the moon) have been played at pretty much every REM show since the early nineties and considering these are live recordings it's no surprise to see them turn up on numerous occasions. And yes, band's promote their albums and will no doubt play a fair amount of that album's tracks at their shows when they play gigs or tour, every band does it. That's promotion. Anyway, a good box set.

From Brad1770 12/29/2018 05:20

R.E.M surprised everyone when this set dropped in November 2018 and features a host of live performances in England recorded by the BBC between 1984 and 2004. R.E.M have always loved their live releases and by my reckoning (see what I did there?) this is their 7th official live release & it's the biggest one yet with the deluxe version coming in at 8 CD's and an eye watering 7 hours 29 minutes worth of music.

Here's the thing , I lead a boring life first and am an R.E.M fan second so I had nothing better to do with my boring time than to listen to the deluxe version , all 8 CD's fully , twice . Here's my review.

Firstly , all of the concerts present are far from random events , and in fact are performed close to either side of a particular albums release to promote and hopefully boost sales of said album . For example CD 1 has a concert featuring many tracks from 'Out Of Time' which was performed on March 13 1991 , 'Out Of Time' was released the day prior on March 12 1991 , another example is from CD 2 with a concert featuring many tracks from 'Up' , again the concert was performed on October 25 1998 with 'Up' released the very next day on October 26 1998 . No surprise here.

Secondly , speaking of 'Up' it just so happens to be the most featured album in this collection with no less than 17 appearances of tracks form the album . Rather odd considering what a low key record 'Up' is . Next is 'Monster' with 13 track appearances ( no surprise here considering the tracks were written to be played live) . Every R.E.M album including 'Chronic Town'(1982) gets at least 1 track except 'Collapse Into Now' which misses out altogether

Thirdly track by track wise "Man On The Moon" and "Losing My Religion" both get a whooping 5 appearances each and probably 4 too many, whilst next is "Walk Unafraid " with a very surprising 4 appearances

CD 1
BBC 1 March 1991 , John Peel October 1998 , BBC 1 October 2003 , BBC 2 October 2003 , Radio 1 March 2008
Mainly an acoustic unplugged collection of tracks
Highlights: rare appearances of non-album tracks "Fretless" and "Bad Day" , as well as a terrific acoustic version of "Supernatural Superserious"
Lowlights: another awful appearance of the awful Troggs cover "Love Is All Around" . What is it with R.E.M and this track ? . Plus the bizarre choice to include an obscure Editors cover "Munich" that quite frankly isn't very good
Best Awkward Stipe Audience Banter: "Do you want me to rap ? The world isn't ready for that" (prior to Radio Song)

CD 2
BBC Radio 1 October 1998
Stock standard live to air performance
Highlight: wonderful rendition of the timeless "Country Feedback"
Lowlight: the one and only appearance in this collection of the average "Parakeet"
Best Awkward Stipe Audience Banter:" We are going to dig way back into the plasticine era prior to anyone even imagining the 20th Century would even exist and do this quite beautiful song that was written By Bill Berry" ( prior to Perfect Circle)

CD 3
Nottingham November 21 1984
Highlight: Nearly everything , being a circa IRS R.E.M guy this would be my favourite CD . What was particularly interesting was the number of tracks "previewed" that would later appear on future albums such as "Hyena" (Life's Rich Pagant ) and "Auctioner" / "Old Man Kensy" / "Driver 8" / "Wendell Gee" (Fables)
Lowlight: something called "9-9 / Hey Diddle Diddle / Feeling Gravity Pull" with doesn't sound like anything - rather a confusing collage of experimental guitar that would do Sonic Youth proud, as weird and as experimental as R.E.M would ever get . Interesting from a fans perspective but ultimately pretty terrible
Best Awkward Stipe Audience Banter:"We're R.E.M we're here from Georgia which is in the southern most part of the United States , we're not proud of our president I'm sorry"

CD 4
Milton Keynes July 30th 1995
Big , loud and brash arena performance featuring many 'Monster' tracks
Highlight: a blistering performance of "What's the Frequency Kenneth"
Low-light: the inclusion of the lame non-album track "Revolution" from the 'Monster' sessions
Best Awkward Stipe Audience Banter: (1) "Here's another song" .. before nearly every song , (2) "This song is not about a blow job" (Before "Bang and Blame" )

CD 5
Milton Keynes July 30th 1995 continued:
Same concert from disc 4 continued into disc 5
Highlight: a powerful and rare live performance of "Let Me In"
Low-light: "Everybody Hurts" , sounds sappy and out of place here
Best Awkward Stipe Audience Banter: " This is a song about thinking your in love but finding out your actually drunk" ( before Half A World Away)

CD 6 and CD 7
Glastonbury 25th June 1999
Cracking headlining performance . A behemoth of a concert with the band at the peak of their popularity and the peak of their powers as they crank through 21 tracks and hold the audience in the palm of their hand . Listen to these CD's then watch their performance on YouTube (R.E.M / Glasonbury / 1999) . Simply breathtaking
Highlight: a for the ages rendition of "It's The End Of The World (And I Feel Fine)" to close the set
Low-light: the rather odd choice to slot the buzz killing "Tongue" 3rd last from the finale
Best Awkward Stipe Audience Banter: "Okay , okay , okay ..what do you want cowboys ?

CD 8
St.James' Church , London Radio 2 15th September 2004
A more intimate performance here , more like a small concert hall type performance
Highlight: a flawless "So Fast Numb" appearance
Low-light: the 5 tracks from 'Around The Sun' ( we all know it's R.E.M's low point album wise)
Best Awkward Stipe Audience Banter: none of note , Michael was strangely subdued here

Summary: a nice package that is essential for all R.E.M fan's . The 1984 and 1999 Glastonbury concerts are the clear highlights for me . My main complaints are the lack of content from the excellent 'Lifes Rich Pagent' with only 3 tracks and the inclusion of way too many versions of "Loosing My Religion" and "Man On The Moon" at 5 each

Now to check out the accompanied DVD with its 31 tracks ..