New Adventures in Hi-Fi

R.E.M.

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 10, 1996)
• Original Release Date: September 10, 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000002N9S
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (183 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #53,433 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

New Adventures, despite its studiocentric title, is a snapshots-from-the-road record in the tradition of Neil Young's Time Fades Away and Jackson Browne's Running on Empty. Like them, it captures a where-am-I-and-why ambience, even with its concert and sound-check material reworked in post-tour sessions. This is very much a transitional album, its feel somewhere between the chamber-folk sweep of Out of Time and Automatic for the People and the distortion-pedal party that raged on Monster. It's the work of a band pretty near its peak consolidating familiar sounds and styles while tinkering with the edges. --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Swan Song Adventures, January 25, 2003

By	M. Swinney "Marc My Words" (Flower Mound, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For R.E.M, the group we grew up with, "New Adventures in Hi-Fi," is really their coda. After "New Adventures," with the loss of drummer Bill Berry, the band morphed into something different. So this is the last chance we have to capture the R.E.M. of old, but be warned this just isn't a group comfortable with their lofty position of pop and rock icons and churning out the same old stuff (not that the same old stuff was anything to ignore). This is R.E.M at their experimental and expanding best. As they made their last album with Berry, they were still growing. Now they still make good music, but come across more as the Michael Stipe Group with, "Up" and "Reveal."

This album was made on the road during the "Monster" tour in which untold tragedies, infirmities and maladies befell the band. Instead of coming off like sound checks and a semi-live album though, it really does reach the listener as coming from the studio, sound-wise. But maybe there is an immediacy behind the songs, a one take, no overlays sound that belies its live origins. Whatever it is, this is one great, energetic, mysterious and beautiful record.

"Undertow" does for water what "Fall on Me" did for the sky. "Go down to the water, get down in the water, walk up off the water...I'm drowning." E-bow The Letter lets Stipe get to duet with one of R.E.M.'s big influences Patti Smith as she drones a mother in the background, "I'll take you over," Stipe answers, "aluminum it tastes like fear" and in the cold bite of aluminum on your teeth the fear analogy works deep and real.

One of R.E.M's best songs is on this album, but hardly noticed to the world at large, "Leave." This loopback wailing of a sonic guitar out of control kicks in after an acoustic lullaby. At first it seems to break the melancholy darkness of the song, but then subtly blends in leaving an other-worldness to the drone of drawn out chords. Stipe croons, "that's what keeps me down, to leave it all behind," as Mills intones beautiful harmony in the background in all the right places (something he has given up on these days with Reveal). The song is beautiful and intense, one of the Athens Five's best.

"Binky the Doormat," though quite strange lyrically is classic R.E.M. Even more classic and hearkening back to the days of "Life's Rich Pageant," is "So Fast, So Numb." It's a rave-up with Stipe's voice cutting a darkened growl, "this is now, this is here, this is me, this is what I wanted you to see."

And "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" I think is exactly what the band wanted to put out, not trying to guess what the public wanted to hear or what would sell. At this point they already reached the public and sold tons of records..."New Adventures" allowed them to make the music that felt right at the time. And what music it is, my second all time R.E.M favorite behind "Life's Rich Pageant," an overlooked gem, a diamond in the rough.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Genius, pure and simple, September 18, 1998

By A Customer

I have an extremely difficult time choosing between this one and "Automatic for the People" as the best R.E.M. album, so I don't bother anymore. "Automatic" was more intrinsically moving and gorgeous, but "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" is much more varied. It runs the gamut from soothing ballads ("How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us") to hard rockers ("So Fast So Numb"). Another thing in this album's favor is that its instrumental, "Zither," is better.

But, on its own merits, this album is harrowing in its disillusionment, yet it's not depressing. It's great that you can understand Michael Stipe in most of the songs. The lyrics tell of disillusionment of posturing ("The Wake-Up Bomb") and religion ("New Test Leper").

I simply love most of the music, too. "E-Bow the Letter" has one of the most haunting melodies in any R.E.M. song, and Patty Smith's backing vocals only add to that effect. "Bittersweet Me" has probably the best mix of mellow sensibility and guitar work of any R.E.M. song. I've always adored Stipe's vocals over piano, so it shouldn't surprise that "Electrolite" is one of my favorite songs. Everything: piano, vocal, strings, percussion, guitar blend so well in it, and what better way to end an album than with "I'm outta here"? Of course, it's a bit eerie now since Bill Berry left, but it's still very apropos. Another great song in terms of sonic effect is "Leave," with its awesome guitar/bass/drum lines and Stipe's soaring vocals in the refrain. "Undertow" is exceptional in the way it builds throughout the verses, and the music and harmonies here are superb in execution. This song also features one of the more odd R.E.M. songs in "Binky the Doormat" then again, "Automatic" had "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite," so maybe the guys have to get quirky at least once in their masterpieces. This whole album is excellent in its variety and complexity, in both lyrics and music.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An underpraised masterpiece, January 13, 2004

By	SPM "scott_maykrantz" (Eugene, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This album combines the gentle experimentation of 'Automatic for the People' with the feedback romance of 'Monster.' REM figured out a way to take the best of those two albums to create this, one of their most underrated albums.

When I first saw it, I was in a record store. I read a lot of music magazines and I thought I was keeping up with what's going on in the record industry, but I had no idea a new REM album was coming out. So I figured it had to be a collection of B-sides, or some kind of 'odds and sods' CD. The cover and the title are deceptive. The album looks so understated, with such a generic name, that you can almost miss it.

I'd glad I figured out what it is, because it became my favorite REM album. Michael Stipe's voice is somewhere between creepy and beautiful on every track. The moody songs have the kind of repetitive perfection of Brian Eno's best ambient albums. The rock songs drone and buzz with noise. It's also worth noting that this is one of the longest REM albums. At 65 minutes, it would be a double album back in the vinyl days. I highly recommend this CD, even if you aren't an REM fan.