Think About Direction, and R.E.M.’s Deluxe Reissue of “Green”
Not long after R.E.M.’s last 25th anniversary edition was released, they’re already prepping the next archival project: Rolling Stone reports an expanded edition of 1988’s Green is on its way May 14.
The Athens, Georgia quartet’s sixth album in as many years was a notable event for them. After a healthy run ascending to the upper echelon of the alternative rock scene on I.R.S. Records, the band took on a new contract with major label Warner Bros., with whom they’d stay for the remainder of their career. The sound of Green, which, like predecessor Document was produced by Scott Litt and the band (an association that would continue through 1996’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi), was still familiar enough to endear itself to their current fan base but also peppy and accessible enough to attract new fans.
The results – which hewed more toward acoustic sounds than they’d previously done – were satisfying to both critics and audiences. Singles “Orange Crush,” “Pop Song 89” and “Stand” almost entirely dominated both Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock and Modern Rock tracks (“Pop Song 89” only peaked at No. 14 on the mainstream chart), and the groovy, simple-but-effective “Stand” crossed over into the U.S. Top 10, helping the record to its eventual double-platinum sales status.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKKqLl_ZEEY]
Once again, this deluxe reissue comes with a live show – and details on that are after the jump!
R.E.M.’s Green tour was their most ambitious yet, and took them across 130 dates. The bonus disc features the penultimate show from that tour, recorded at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina on November 10, 1989. The set list drew heavily from Green, featuring eight of the LP’s 11 cuts and even featured “Low” and “Belong,” two songs that would make it on the band’s 1991 follow-up, Out of Time.
Like the Document reissue, it’s been confirmed that the show will not be complete – not due to licensing cover songs (although only one of the four performed, Pylon’s “Strange,” are included), but time constraints (the set list features no less than 29 songs!). But there is good news: on Record Store Day, Rhino will release a five-track EP featuring songs that didn’t make the bonus disc. The label will press 2,500 of these discs, which will also come with an original Green tour patch after a batch were found in the band’s archive.
Look for pre-orders on the two-disc Green, as well as a remastered vinyl edition of the original album, soon – and check out the track list below!
R.E.M., Green: 25th Anniversary Edition (Warner Bros./Rhino, 2013)
Disc 1: Remastered original LP (originally released as Warner Bros. 25795, 1988)
- Pop Song 89
- Get Up
- You Are the Everything
- Stand
- World Leader Pretend
- The Wrong Child
- Orange Crush
- Turn You Inside-Out
- Hairshirt
- I Remember California
- 11/Unititled
Disc 2: Live at the Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, NC – 11/10/1989
- Stand
- The One I Love
- Turn You Inside Out
- Belong
- Exhuming McCarthy
- Good Advices
- Orange Crush
- Cuyahoga
- These Days
- World Leader Pretend
- I Believe
- Get Up
- Life and How to Live It
- Its the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)
- Pop Song 89
- Fall on Me
- You Are the Everything
- Begin The Begin
- Low
- Finest Worksong
- Perfect Circle
R.E.M., Live in Greensboro EP (Warner Bros./Rhino, 2013)
- So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)
- Feeling Gravitys Pull
- Strange
- King of Birds
- I Remember California
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10 thoughts on “Think About Direction, and R.E.M.’s Deluxe Reissue of “Green””
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I both love and hate the idea of having to score a copy of the Record Store Day EP in order to get the complete the Greensboro show.
So, they couldn’t break the concert into two discs? Seemed to work with Peter Gabriel….
KInd of ticked off that again, the b-sides are left off. Trying to collect (or complete) an R.E.M. collection between b-sides and fan club tracks (Among other things) can be a full time job (as well as an expensive hobby). I gladly would have paid extra for a third disc to start slowly picking up those items.
It´s a very shoddy release. I stopped buying at the Document one. While the previous ones featured rarities you couldn´t find anywhere, these are widely available bootlegs that at least have the decency to be complete. I mean, these álbum are for collectors, aren´t they?
Green 2-disc reissue is expected, as they’ve been doing this for the past few years each time an original album reaches its 25th anniversary. I agree that disc 1 is sparse when there are several b-sides and other rarities that could have rounded it out nicely and preserved them properly. Maybe they’ve got a huge rarities project coming out down the line that collects everything. Even as a download-only purchase, such an offering would be welcomed by fans. Sure hope the live EP is a CD and not vinyl only.
Picking this up for sure, as always thanks for the heads up!
I always come back to Green when I’m looking for a random album to put on. It’s just so damn good. World Leader Pretend? Orange Crush? Unstoppable.
I was always an R.E.M. fan, and would rush to the record store to get their albums on the day they were released. While there are some great songs on Green, I usually avoid it because I can’t stand, well, Stand.. Maybe it was overplayed at the time, or perhaps it was the stupid video , but I just don’t care if I ever hear it again. And as per the other comments, I’m not enamored with the anniversary sets –even though I loyally purchase them(figure that one out!)–they seem overpriced, are stingy with both the rarities-and the time allotted on a compact disc– and the remastering is such that they don’t sound like I remember them sounding when I used to play the s#$@t out of them.
“Strange” is the Wire cover, not Pylon. The Pylon cover was “Crazy.”
No B-Sides ? No sale for me. I have the DVD-A of this album