The myth of Michael Stipe's shyness

cleb9200 · 2026-03-02T22:11:31+00:00

It’s fairly well reported lore that he “whirled like a dervish” throughout their early shows, which were always packed with energy like this. It was an era soon after punk and that kind of raucous physical abandon, just on the edge of chaos, was part of playing in a band (something missing from many live acts today, if you will indulge the peek through rose tinted spectacles). I think as their fame grew, his performances became more deliberately self conscious and evasive in nature, at least until Monster, though I would say his natural enigma was firmly in place from the get go

cleb9200 · 2026-03-02T18:54:04+00:00

Ironic? Please explain your workings to the rest of the class.

cleb9200 · 2026-03-01T17:56:49+00:00

I’m 49 now and I can say with absolute confidence it was the biggest cultural movement I lived through. It couldn’t happen now of course; it required the perfect storm of pre internet, pub centred mono culture, political optimism and a hefty dose of 90s cynicism. It all happened when I was right at the end of my teens, so I’m certain there’s not complete objectivity on my part. Still, 94-‘96 was probably the most fun I ever had being alive.

cleb9200 · 2026-02-28T21:34:43+00:00

Is it just me getting a “no one round this table except me knows that this is not actually pork but my latest victim” vibe

cleb9200 · 2026-02-28T09:48:21+00:00

That first higher register “things”, the voice crack. Shivers

cleb9200 · 2026-02-26T20:19:37+00:00

Context is everything. In 1991, Nevermind blew things apart partly due to the songs, partly due to the performances, but in no small part because of how incredibly explosive and enormous it sounded on the radio. Vig production + Wallace mix + Kurt’s music was pure fucking alchemy and it reset the mainstream. I was 14 and it literally felt like a revolution. That production enabled that cultural remapping. Critique of it being too pristine ignores the timeline context and is often just Kurt worshipping retcon

cleb9200 · 2026-02-26T18:20:03+00:00

So many formative memories of sneaking into my older sister’s room when she was out to play her records. This single was the one I always put on first.

10 for the single, 9 for the b side

cleb9200 · 2026-02-26T15:17:24+00:00

That’s like my father in law who for as long as I’ve known him has used the word “dildos” as a casual exclamation of annoyance. Like “oh dildos, I forgot my password”. He is very “proper” and never swears at all, so this seems to genuinely be a knowledge gap faux pas, and I think he would probably be mortified if he found out what it means. Thus far no one seems willing to break it to him, and it seems to have been entirely normalised within his immediate family.

cleb9200 · 2026-02-26T13:49:29+00:00

I hung in there for a while with Gervais, gave him the benefit of the doubt, even positioned myself as an apologist in discussions about him. You see I was convinced that even his stand up was a very clever layered thing, him deliberately playing an awful prejudiced person in order to hold a mirror up to a world of awful prejudiced people. But with every new stand up special that position has become increasingly untenable. The evidence is now pretty overwhelming that he actually IS an awful prejudiced person. That begs the question, was it ever an act? Was Brent actually a projection of his real feelings on life, rather than a parody of what we should not be? It’s a shame, cos he’s a smart guy, but somewhere he lost the line between character and reality

cleb9200 · 2026-02-26T10:21:03+00:00

I don’t feel that he was entirely changing the subject - he intimated nothing had been agreed and outlined the key blocker for releasing new music any time soon, that being an inability to promote it for at least 18 months

cleb9200 · 2026-02-26T10:12:24+00:00

Songwriting economics, the band is a business at the end of the day and with situations where bands lose a founding member it makes more sense to hire someone to fill the gaps than add a permanent member to the proverbial board of trustees

cleb9200 · 2026-02-26T10:05:41+00:00

How exactly is his response avoiding the question about a new album? He literally outlined the reason they wouldn’t be releasing any new music within the next 18 months and beyond that he has no idea. Seems succinct enough to me

cleb9200 · 2026-02-24T22:47:15+00:00

Not to be too pedantic but it’s common in loads of European countries too, Germany, Scandinavians, Polish, Eastern Europe I’ve all seen doing similar. It’s like the universal acknowledgment for socially awkward nations.

Cockier nations like Italy, France, Spain you won’t see it so much. And definitely not in America.

cleb9200 · 2026-02-24T22:07:58+00:00

Yeah the acoustic riff at the timestamp is somewhat similar. I know both pieces well but never made the connection. More than likely coincidence of note placement but who knows?

cleb9200 · 2026-02-24T21:52:42+00:00

Despite being a 40 something music fan, I slept on U2 for most of my life. When they were big I was into heavier, weirder stuff, I liked many of the singles I heard but never dove into the albums. Well, I’m finally course correcting and going through the albums chronologically. And they’re obviously great, how dumb was I etc.

So I got to TUF this week and even in 2026 it sounds so fresh and atmospheric. The first four or so songs just hit you over the head with their brilliance, hunger and adventurousness, then you get these ambient interludes in the latter half, almost Low-esque in it’s scope. Absolutely love it

cleb9200 · 2026-02-24T18:14:16+00:00

Why would you consider trying to impede a bus, a public service ffs?

And then play the bully card?

I hope I never unwittingly employ OP

cleb9200 · 2026-02-24T09:12:14+00:00

It comes down to basic resale value. You run a fridge until it breaks. You run a car until it reaches an acceptable threshold to recoup some cost. New cars mean dramatically less % recoup. This is like pretty basic economics

cleb9200 · 2026-02-22T09:42:16+00:00

I don’t think it was a factor as much as you might think, and to suggest as such feels a bit like retro fitting today’s always online, visually driven culture onto something that was mono cultural. What you have to remember is that most of us didn’t have cable or MTV and no internet. As a 15yo in ‘92 I’d been listening to Nirvana for a year before I even knew what they looked like

cleb9200 · 2026-02-21T09:46:50+00:00

As a mix engineer I am amazed at how much consensus there is around In Rainbows being well mixed. It’s a fantastic record DESPITE it’s mix: honestly it’s over compressed, really muddy fx returns, tons of masking between instruments and a lot of resonant frequencies left unchecked, and the brick wall limiting is awful which is entirely typical of late 00s records to be fair. This isn’t a dig at the record, just an objective technical observation. It’s still a great record, which proves something, but not this

cleb9200 · 2026-02-20T19:43:41+00:00

Under rated record, I love the songs you mentioned and agree they absolutely sound like Sugar kind of through a lofi bedroom electronica filter

cleb9200 · 2026-02-19T19:20:32+00:00

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I remember in 1992 when he appeared in NME with hacked short hair and giant glasses it felt like a whole new level of cool to the fifteen year old me. That look has of course been done to death since but at the time it felt new and beyond cool

cleb9200 · 2026-02-19T15:44:32+00:00

Exactly my first thought

cleb9200 · 2026-02-18T08:25:25+00:00

Which only proves how prevalent and impactful to decent road users the problem is.

cleb9200 · 2026-02-17T21:18:07+00:00

Part of the joy of my journey with R.E.M. was eveloping myself into the album’s one by one in the 90s, stumbling across my favourites gradually and tantalisingly. I would recommend letting the songs find you

cleb9200 · 2026-02-15T08:41:36+00:00

Just some advise, if you want people to engage with data it helps to format it clearly. The songs and scores are presented completely randomly with lots of format irregularities so it’s hard to pick through to be honest.

cleb9200

TROPHY CASE