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  Music

  Home Clips

  REM Green Review

  Album. Released 1988.  

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  Artist Played By

  1. 

     Shaun Keaveny BBC Radio 6 Music

  2. 

     Chris Hawkins BBC Radio 6 Music

  3. 

     Steve Lamacq BBC Radio 6 Music

  Links

  • Wikipedia article on Green
    
  • Reviews available at www.bbc.co.uk
    
  • Lyrics for Green
    
  • Discogs page for Green
    

  • Tracklistings come from MusicBrainz. You can add or edit information about Green at musicbrainz.org . Find out more about our use of this data, and also our policy on profanity

  • Find out more about our use of this data.

  BBC Review

  There’s an ambition on Green that’s not always present on their earlier albums.

  Sid Smith 2007

  Having parted company with their indie roots after taking the big-buck deal offered by Warner Bros, REM punted away the from their natural comfort zone painstakingly articulated across a string of eclectic albums since their debut in 1983. Enjoying rising popularity not only at home but increasingly in Europe, they took up with producer Scott Litt (who had raised the bar on the preceding album, Document) to make their first real swing at the big-time.

  
  

  Recorded over an eleven week period, whilst the majority of REM’s trademark elements are in place, there’s also an ambition on Green that’s not always present on their earlier albums. Perhaps it’s being in the company of clear-cut stompers such as “Pop Song 89,” with its Doors-like tease, or the message-laden “Stand”, calling for a raising of political awareness at a time when the American Right were on the ascendant. Certainly the megaphone diplomacy of the booming “Orange Crush” left nobody in doubt that REM were moving up into the big league.

  
  

  The commodious and well-lit spaces of Green stand in stark contrast against the moody, atmospherics of old, though there are some stylistic carry-overs. The prog-rock dirge of “I Remember California” bears gloomy witness to a world losing itself in a blur of accelerating change. How they themselves coped with their increasing visibility was also an area of concern. Ascribing any definitive meaning to a Michael Stipe lyric is fraught and foolish, though “World Leader Pretend” whilst being about the remoteness of our political classes also ponders on how fame erects barriers that are both irksome yet, in some ways, necessary.

  
  

  Green is not quite the sell-out some REM die-hards would have you believe but it was the point at which the discreet manifesto previously pursued became writ large. A bigger sound made more explicit than ever before, Green pump-primed the world for what would become Athens’ biggest export.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you choose to use this review on your site please link back to this page.

  

  Tracks

  1. 1 Pop Song 89
  2. 2 Get Up
  3. 3 You Are the Everything
  4. 4 Stand
  5. 5 World Leader Pretend
  6. 6 The Wrong Child
  7. 7 Orange Crush
  8. 8 Turn You Inside‐Out
  9. 9 Hairshirt
  10. 10 I Remember California
  11. 11 [untitled]

  • Clips taken from original discs may contain strong language.

  require(["reviewdisctoggles"]);

  • Tracklistings come from MusicBrainz. You can add or edit information about Green at musicbrainz.org . Find out more about our use of this data, and also our policy on profanity

  Contributors

  • Photography by Jon McCafferty, J.M. Stipe, Michael Tighe and Jem Cohen
  • Composed by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe
  • Mastered by Bob Ludwig
  • Produced by Scott Litt and R.E.M.

  Release Details

  • 
    Label

    Warner Bros. Records

    
    
  • 
    Date

    1988

    
    
  • 
    Country

    Europe

    
    
  • 
    Format

    CD

    
    
  • 
    Catalogue #

    7599-25795-2

    
    

  
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