>>130323746
They're one of the greatest and most consistent bands of all time. Start from their first album all the way to New Adventures for one amazing ride.

Peaked on their debut

>>130323746
I don't believe you

>>130323746
They are the most influential rock band of the 80s besides U2

>>130323760
I agree that all of their albums are worth listening to, even Around the Sun has its moments

>>130324158
They have a couple great songs after New Adventures but nothing quite reaches their previous highs. Bad Day and Imitation of Life are fucking top tier though.

>>130323746
Their first albums are more "underground" jangle pop. After Out of Time their sound is way more radio friendly.

>>130323746
not kidding - listen to them in order of release. they are AOR anyway.

>>130324551
You don't know what AOR means

>>130323760
>Start from their first album
people should start with chronic town, not murmur

>>130324813
They're both fine starting points. I think Murmur gives a better idea of what they can expect from this period in their career.

>>130323746
They can't influence cause it's sound isnt idiosyncratic enough unlike vu or Beefheart. Same can be said about sonic youth. It's just jangle Byrd's so saying it's influential is just overrating

>>130328942
Velvet Underground is only enjoyed by car wash employees. And REM's influence is felt far and wide. Nice try, bozo

Pavement is better
Much more influential as well

>>130331293
Pavement fucking sucks

>>130323746
they were one of the earliest "college rock" bands, they did jangle pop akin to the 60s stuff, that style was more common with uk bands at that time. by the late 80s it was more pop rock, they were a band that crossed over from college radio to the mainstream and predated the narrative that nirvana started the alt boom which zoomers and vh1 perpetuate

>>130331293
rem and pavement are very different bands. pavement has more a punk/tvu/fall influence

>>130332838
REM with its mandolin riffs in the early 90s could not have started any alt boom.

>>130332876
You're picking one song out like a moron. Maybe try listening to their other work.

>>130323746
They are the first US alternative band to break barriers every step of the way
They were among the first to tour when touring outside your community was not that feasible, Murmur was the first one to get mainstream attention with topping Rolling Stones best album of the year and making the charts, Document was the first to reach the top level of the charts plus have a top 10 single, then they were among the first to get a major record deal and do well on it (bands like Replacements got there first but then never made it to the level REM did), and Out of Time reached #1 on the charts as the first just before Nirvana and alternative blew up.
Their genre (southern-influenced jangle pop) was not that influential on artists style itself even though they were critically beloved albums. What was influential was defining offbeat genre fusions to encourage alternative bands have a unique sound and proving alternative could have an audience in the US.
You are not going to hear the musical influence in later alternative acts as much as they paved the way for all acts after them even if indirectly

>>130324764
album-oriented rock. That is exactly what REM was before they started making hit records. During the IRS years, REM was an AOR band.

Chronic Town/Murmur/Reckoning are the peak of deblackified rock music alongside the Smiths.

>>130324764
What does it mean?

>>130323760
>They're one of the greatest and most consistent bands of all time.
consistently bad
>>130324158
>They are the most influential rock band of the 80s besides U2
yeah, because nobody ever tried to copy bon jovi right?

>>130337533
Trying way too hard

Document and Mumur imo, they have close to 10 listenable to solid albums but overall they were too early in the history of indie rock and so their music sounds dated or too basic in comparison to the bands that followed and learned from them, they either lack the energy or the raw emotion, the production quality, or the various eccentricities. Thats not to say they don't have tons of great songs but I think they were largely surpassed by 90s indie rockers. That said Velvet Underground imo paved the way before them and they were not surpassed in the same way because they were more out there. Their 3rd album especially feels like proto REM

>>130337899
how so? you name one or two fags bands from around the same time REM was popular and point to them and act like REM was influential. i point out literally 100s of bands tried to copy bom jovi after they caused hair metal to go mainstream

>>130338096
Look at bands from the 90s and 00s

Reveal [Warner Bros., 2001]
Not as bad as it first sounds, but also not as good as they thought when they released it, or they wouldn't have, I hope. Suffused with somnolent tempos and pensive arrangements, the romantic trials and spiritual quests of struggling rock and rollers can be pretty hard to take, so why should we care about the ditto of wealthy movie producers with a record contract to fulfill and 21 individually acknowledged string players on call? Even a movie producer who knows the names of Japanese carp and French emotions that he'll happily print out in the booklet now that he's e-nun-ci-a-ting ev-ry sing-gle word? B-

>>130336258
I argue they're the equivalent to alternative rock in the US what Buzzcocks are to British indie rock

>>130337533
>>130338096
Shut the fuck up, retard

>>130338096
Bon Jovi influenced buttrock like nickelback and creed and the "singing" parts in rap "music"

>>130340445
no
>>130340460
wrong. bon jovi popularized hair metal. you retards dont understand that before you give love a bad name there was nothing but shit like thats what friends are for all over the radio. bon jovi were bigger than nirvana you fucking retards

>>130331293
>Much more influential
Hell no