Still one of the greatest albums ever❤!! Listening to this, I feel like being in love with this unique band again...and nowadays, it sounds even better than it already did back then. This is the best alternative/punky album ever.
Being hardwired to their first three full length LP’s by 1985 this EP got the press it deserved by then. Memories of being stationed in the UK at a cruise missile base permeate my thoughts. REM had just finished ‘Fables’ when I arrived in the spring that year. They were sick of the weather and food. I stuck around for two glorious years but never caught them in Hammersmith or anywhere. When I saw Television in ‘92 it atoned for all the great acts I missed. REM habitually covered ‘See No Evil’ live. I wish the first three LP’s for Warner Bros. sank in like the three records after this one, but they had matured and moved on. A timeless first 5-7 years. Still hardwired after nearly four decades.
I had just gotten out of the Navy and started college 1984. My roommate was from Athens, Ga. He played this album constantly along with R.E.M. and all the Alt. College radio stuff coming out. A lot of it went over my head but this right here, like a first childhood memory, is wired in my brain forever.
EP!! This music was young when I was young. I'm overcome by nostalgia. It was Spring. The trees were in bloom. I was studying at K.U. (I missed my Logic final, but was able to retake it later.) Everything was possible. Hearing this now is like opening the drawer of an antique dresser filled with gloriously scented handkerchiefs. xxxooo
I was just getting into clubs in Kansas City when CHRONIC TOWN, and then MURMUR hit me like a ton of bricks. Some tremendous memories come back to me when I hear early REM. 'FABLES' was also an important REM album to me. I saw them live several times, but my first REM show was at HOCH Auditorium (at KU!) In 1984, and then three years in a row (85-87) at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas. Great shows all. I also loved that REM championed other bands in interviews. I became obsessed with The Replacements (and many other indie bands) after hearing Stipe or Buck rave about them. But yeah, the early REM records have been in my heart, soul, and mind since I heard them back in those Halcyon days. Hard to believe CHRONIC TOWN is 40 years old...
Great comment...I was a college kid trying to figure out how to negotiate through everything and anything - R.E.M. was in their early phase and hadn't quite hit it so big that they became oversold...what a wonderful time...
R.E.M. were one of the first bands I ever got into, even as a toddler. Late 80s baby; my parents gave me a kickass background to build upon and I'm grateful for awesome stuff like this. The original "alternative" band.
Those jangling guitar arpeggios, that soft but crunchy voice, that steady beat. I'm in love again (honestly, never been out of it, but forgot what chills you gave me in my youth)❤
I was in Athens in the '80s. I remember the first times you would see these guys wandering around on the street, and then after a while, it was like, oh, there's Buck again. Special times.
Just discovered this EP last December and absolutely love it! 😍Later on in the Winter I finished a game of A Song of Ice & Fire Miniatures with a friend at the gaming bar and went to the local book and record store. They somehow had the picture disc of this EP. Had to grab it immediately! 💜 Carnival of Sorts is my favorite.
This makes me very nostalgic and happy! Growing up 25 mins from Athens as a teen in the 80's, this band opened music up to my friends and I in a good good way!
not me nowhere near Athens however in Lawrence Kansas these guys were gods I saw them at the KU Student Union maybe 100 people and couldn't understand a single word M Stipe said even afterwards talking with the band
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Chronic Town EP by R.E.M. Released August 24, 1982 Recorded October 1981 and June 1982 Length 20:26 Chronic Town is the debut EP by American alternative rock band R.E.M., released on August 24, 1982, on I.R.S. Records. Containing five tracks, the EP was recorded at the Drive-In Studio in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in October 1981, eighteen months after the formation of the band. Its co-producer was Mitch Easter, who produced the band's "Radio Free Europe" single earlier in 1981. Chronic Town's opening track, "Wolves, Lower", was re-recorded in June 1982, two months before the EP's release. Regarding the title of the EP, the band's drummer, Bill Berry, said: "A 'chronic town' is a city in the state of mind." It is also part of the lyric to "Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)", the third track on the release,[3] and the name of the first side of the EP. "Poster Torn", also a lyric in "Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)", is the name of side two. I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg said of Chronic Town: "The thing that made me play the cassette again and again was that it kept getting better. It was not the kind of thing you listened to once or twice, casually, and said, 'Oh my God! This is tremendous!' It had a depth to it." NME reviewer Richard Grabel wrote, "Chronic Town is five songs that spring to life full of immediacy and action and healthy impatience. Songs that won't be denied." Grabel praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."[18] Creem writer Robot A. Hull began his review saying, "This EP is so arcane that I had to play it six times in a row to get a handle on it - and even now, I'm still not sure." Hull praised the EP for "[evoking] the music of the late-'60s without any pretensions, mingling past and present to shape both into concurrent moments." Hull concluded, "Despite its eccentricity, R.E.M.'s record is undoubtedly the sleeper EP of the year." Chronic Town ranked second in the EP category of the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll in 1982. For Record Store Day 2010, held on April 17 of that year, participating independent record stores sold a limited-edition and individually-numbered blue vinyl 12" reissue of the long-out of print EP. Track listing All songs written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe. Side one - "Chronic Town" "Wolves, Lower" - 4:10 "Gardening at Night" - 3:29 "Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)" - 3:54 Side two - "Poster Torn" "1,000,000" - 3:06 "Stumble" - 5:40 Personnel R.E.M. Bill Berry - drums, vocals Peter Buck - guitar Mike Mills - bass guitar, vocals Michael Stipe - vocals
Brilliant music and lyrics REM kept me going when alone and I was on their philomath mailing list for fanzines and posters they sent, one day a reunion 🎶💛🇺🇸🏴
Same here I only started listening to REM a month ago, and got into this EP recently, then I see on social media the same day that its this EP's 40th anniversary... 😄
Do it this way. Listen to just the guitar. Then just listen to the drums. Then just the lyrics. Then listen to just the back up vocals. I pity those of you who didn't live through the 1980s. You will never, genuinely -- GROK -- this album. You'll come close, but you'll never truly "speak it" without an accent.
Thanks for uploading this wonderful EP. and for no ads! Saw REM 4x in the very early 80s. Shared a beer with Michael after the 1982 show at The Pier in Raleigh NC. Great memories, indeed❤
Words cannot describe how much better those days were than now. Young people you just cannot understand so please stop criticizing us for being nostalgic. they were the greatest of times and these are the worst of times. By the way, this is my vote for probably the greatest pre-debut album of all time.
I haven't listened to REM in a long time. I wore out their albums in the 80s and 90s and then lost interest. It's very nice to listen to this again. Brings back great memories!
I was a student in Atlanta in 1983 when these guys played the local scene - 688, Moon Shadow Saloon, Georgia Tech, the 40 Watt Club. We knew we were hearing novel, genius, shit, but damn, we couldn't fathom the meaning at the time. We used to talk about how Michael Stipe's voice was an instrument by itself. I have to read the lyrics to understand what the hell was really going on. These guys played their own instruments, interacted in a way that is lost in the modern music market. I mean, you can't spell CRAP without RAP.
Omg, 688!? I remember that place it was a dive. But we used to drive all the way from Birmingham Alabama where I studied to see punk bands there and just thought it was the coolest thing. Thanks for jogging, my memory, buddy (or buddette). :)
Well well well.... This little gem is finally coming out on a stand alone CD.😘 I guess I'm a lil" bummed that they're not adding any bonus tracks or alternate versions of any of these songs here. I'll admit that I bought the cassette soley based on the cover of the gargoyle on a blue background. I'm not sure what section of the dinky little music store it was in. Being into heavy metal and early electronic music like Popol Vuh, Brian Eno and the likes along with Sonic Youth, Bad Brains ect..... I mean I collect (ed) all forms as long as it was good. I don't even think there WAS an alternative section yet so...?? I can tell you that this was my first example of "college rock" that I had ever purchased and I fell for it in a huge way. Even though at the time I was in a Metal band I absolutely loved the jingle jangly sound of it all. So much that I bought the first 4 or 5 releases unheard because I couldn't go wrong with these guys and their oh so pleasant sound that evolved with each release.I hafta be careful tho cuz I find myself getting a lil' melancholic and the next thing u kno I'll be buying all the aforementioned releases AGAIN and I'm running outta places to put my collection. I think I bought this and Screaming for Vengeance at the same time. Totally opposite ends of the musical spectrum but like I said... Good Music !!!👍🙏❤️
as an avid music fan, i always sought out what was new and innovative, rarely being content with what was popular on the mainstream media. When REM first came out, they were highly touted , but, i was not engaged at first, they were so "outside of the box", i had no receptors for them. These receptors grew to love and cherish this new music they made. Music is funny that way, some new directions become the norm, and it is hard to remember, impossible for late comes to know, how radical it all once was.
Lol. Got a massive poster of rem and u2 boy from a catalog for my baltimore studio apt sophomore year in art school... yeah $435 rent in 1990 seemed so high😂
@@kevinrogers326 Pretty sure The Pups, Husker Du, The Pixies and The Replacements (all better bands imho) would wholeheartedly disagree with this dude. Hyperbole indeed!
Rem die mostly right in what they wanted and never by taking too much attention from their fand and lovely andvabsolute left what they had to. But somehow I am Messenger it - laughs, love, growl. Bye from central europe somewhere near Hanau. Stef
Caue,, smith, Nirvana, Radiohead, hole. This era is origin in finding and becoming the beautyful Sound of the rem-monster. A very softly sarcastic lovely monster, from which you only can be afraid of, if you are truly scared of Baby Tiger-lily kittens
This band freaks me out beyond rational thought. Gnostic esoteric weirdness that is just mind-blowing. I saw them back in 81 at the Harvey Hubble Gymnasium in Bridgeport, CT and I know how fuckin weird Hubble was. He's another godless Rex Arcana dude. One of the four friends I saw that Hubble show with is the adult in the Orange Crush video. His name was Steve Whitney. This level Realm is fuckin wild.
