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Amazon.co.uk Review
Green catapulted R.E.M. from campus cult favourites to rock stars of the highest order. The album contains three of the Athens, Georgia, quartet's most popular radio hits ("Pop Song 89", "Stand", and "Orange Crush"), punching up the big rock hooks and letting the spooky independent production slip away. Some diehard fans cried "Sellout!" but that's a strange attitude given singer Michael Stipe's environmental activism. "I'm very scared of this world," he sings above jangling mandolins on "You Are the Everything". It's still unclear what he's trying to say, but at least we can understand the words this time. --Steve Knopper
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Cd > Popular Music > RockCD > POPULAR MUSIC > ROCK
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It was inevitable that signing to big boys Warner Bros would result in a big sounding album with a more commercial slant. But this is not to say that REM suddenly abandoned the credentials that made them such a fine album producing outfit throughout the 1980's. 'Green' is the sound of a band full of confidence. Previous album 'Document' had elevated their profile a great extent, now it was time to take their sound on to a bigger audience. From the opening track 'Pop Song 89' it's clear that they have opted for a more listener friendly approach, mixing typically oblique lyrics into a smooth pop format. There are other pop classics here too, 'Get Up' and 'Stand' being the most obvious examples. But most interesting of all is the world-weary, paranoid 'World Leader Pretend' which attempts to draw parallels between band spokesman and dictator without the pompous indulgence of, say, Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall'. 'Green' is the perfect transition album, capturing a band coming out of indie obscurity and blinking at the bright lights of the global stage. Fans of REM's later work will be able to get plenty from this album: it may not be as user-friendly as 'Out of Time' or 'Automatic for the People' but it's still a rewarding experience so if you liked the REM albums mentioned above (and, let's face it, most people only really know these two)don't hesitate to invest in 'Green'. You won't regret it. But don't stop there either, go further back to 'Document' and 'Lifes Rich Pageant' for even more relatively unknown gems.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I'm torn between this and Automatic For The People as my favourite REM album (which given my favourite REM album would probably also be my favourite album of all time is fairly high praise). This is by no means as perfect or coherent an album as "Automatic..." or indeed "Out Of Time", "Reveal" and several others and it is indeed a transitory album but its flaws do not detract from its overall brilliance, which stems from having such a strong collection of songs. While Orange Crush" and "Stand" offer the pop, as it were, to draw in casual listeners, there are more complex, more beautiful songs once you are pulled in. Of these, "The Wrong Child" is the best, a painful paean to being different and am convinced, partially from experience, that the chorus "I'm not supposed to be like this...but it's ok" sum up being disabled, scarred or different as well as any words written in history. Elsewhere, "You Are The Everything" is beautiful and "World Leader Pretend" is a phenomenal song. While I feel "Automatic..." wins out as an album overall, I feel this is the album to buy if you are looking for Stipe's finest lyrics and trying to understand how REM got to where they are. A flawed masterpiece that, through its flaws, becomes even more of a masterpiece
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
REM played their first concert in Athens, Georgia in April 1980. Their line-up consisted of two Californians (guitarist Peter Buck and basist Mike Mills), a Minnesota native (drummer Bill Berry) and a single Georgian (singer Mike Mills) who had met at the University of Georgia. In the finest traditions of rock 'n' roll, all four dropped out and have since been labelled in some equarters the Godfathers of US 'alt-rock'.
Released in 1988, "Green" was the band's sixth full-length album, but their first to be released on a major label. Although they continued to work with Scott Litt, who had produced their previous album "Document", the two albums sound quite different to my ears. "Turn You Inside Out" is probably the one song on "Green" that wouldn't have sounded out of place on "Document" . It's also one of the better songs on this album - though, in contrast to the album's other highlighs, it's totally plugged in and features a guitar riff that grinds in a good way. "You Are The Everything" and "Hairshirt" are the two other tracks that stand out for me - gentle acoustic numbers that feature Peter Buck on mandolin rather than electric guitar. "World Leader Pretend" is another excellent track - a touch less acoustic, though it manages to keep an introspective feel while Bucky Baxter's pedal steel guitar adds a slight country feel to it. The band also saw some chart success wih singles lifted from this album - "Stand" reached the US Top Ten in early 1989 (it also features Peter Buck's first solo with a newly acquired wah-wah pedal), while "Orange Crush" made the UK's Top Thirty later that same year. However, I don't really think the years have been kind to either song - while I liked them both well enough at the time, I'd now consider them easily the weakest tracks on the album.
Overall, "Green" is a decent album. It some great tracks and is well worth four stars - but, on the whole, REM have done better.
Released in 1988, "Green" was the band's sixth full-length album, but their first to be released on a major label. Although they continued to work with Scott Litt, who had produced their previous album "Document", the two albums sound quite different to my ears. "Turn You Inside Out" is probably the one song on "Green" that wouldn't have sounded out of place on "Document" . It's also one of the better songs on this album - though, in contrast to the album's other highlighs, it's totally plugged in and features a guitar riff that grinds in a good way. "You Are The Everything" and "Hairshirt" are the two other tracks that stand out for me - gentle acoustic numbers that feature Peter Buck on mandolin rather than electric guitar. "World Leader Pretend" is another excellent track - a touch less acoustic, though it manages to keep an introspective feel while Bucky Baxter's pedal steel guitar adds a slight country feel to it. The band also saw some chart success wih singles lifted from this album - "Stand" reached the US Top Ten in early 1989 (it also features Peter Buck's first solo with a newly acquired wah-wah pedal), while "Orange Crush" made the UK's Top Thirty later that same year. However, I don't really think the years have been kind to either song - while I liked them both well enough at the time, I'd now consider them easily the weakest tracks on the album.
Overall, "Green" is a decent album. It some great tracks and is well worth four stars - but, on the whole, REM have done better.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not the best...
In a nutshell, it's one of the weaker R.E.M. albums, though there are actually some great ones on there, such as "Get Up" and "Stand". Read more
Published 9 months ago by T. Edwards
Great!
A gem of an album! If you love REM then you won't be disappointed with this . Just starting to hit the big time. A must buy for all die-hard fans. 5*
Published on 15 May 2010 by Lil 1965
Another one of my desert island discs
This is REMs best and it is one of those rare albums with not one weak track/album fillers on it, and if you are new to REM (where the hell have you been) then this is the album to... Read more
Published on 8 April 2010 by Stephen
A mis-step, but not without merit.
With 1987's Document album taking them into arenas rather than high school gyms, REM left IRS records and signed a major label deal with Warners, after resisting the courtship of... Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2010 by dynamitekid156
REM step confidently into the spotlight.
REM,s first album for a major label ( Warner Bros for who they signed a five album deal worth $10 million) was their sixth album and arguably the first that saw the band fall from... Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2008 by russell clarke
"It's A Beautiful Life"
'Green'-R.E.M.'s 1988 offering and first album for a major record label isn't a huge step forward from it's folk-rock tinged predecessor-'Document'. Read more
Published on 15 Dec 2007 by nm1270
The Eighties Best
This album is amazing! Some R.E.M fans say Murmur is the best others say Automatic and some say Out of Time. But this album has it all. Read more
Published on 17 Dec 2004 by "t_molloy5"
Green is Great
I'm a big REM fan and this is quite simply a fantastic record - its actually the first one I bought, back in 1988. Read more
Published on 22 Sep 2004 by Coucho
POOR SECOND-RATE ALBUM by a HUGE REM fan
In my judgement this is REM's weakest album. None of the fun or catchy jingly-jangly tunes of Murmur or Reckoning, It’s all just a bit forgettable, a few hits interspersed... Read more
Published on 7 Oct 2002 by "roadsters_revenge"
SPRINGBOARD TO GLOBAL DOMINATION
It's no accident that "Green" is sandwiched in time between R.E.M.'s most demanding album ("Document") and their most accessible ("Out of Time"). Read more
Published on 31 Jan 2002 by J. C. Bailey
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