Maps of Music

Green (1988)

Where the lyrics of Green take you, and where it was really made.

The cover shows a '4' printed over the letter R in the band's name, and this is said to have started as an early typing mistake.

Key places

Basic tracks laid down in Memphis (1988)

Recording site Ardent Studios — The band recorded the basic tracks for Green at Ardent Studios' Studio A in Memphis, Tennessee, from May 24 through July 5, 1988, with Scott Litt producing. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Later sessions and mixing in Bearsville (1988)

Recording site Bearsville Studios — Recording and mixing resumed later that month at Bearsville Studios in Bearsville, New York, and the sessions continued until September 3, 1988. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Green: sixth studio album by American rock band R.E.M.
• Released in the United States on November 8, 1988, by Warner Bros. Records
• Released the following day in the UK and Europe, per the lead; the body gives 7 November for the UK
• Second album produced by the band and Scott Litt
• Continued exploring political issues in both its lyrics and its packaging
• Band wrote major-key rock songs and brought in new instruments such as mandolin
• Four singles: "Orange Crush", "Stand", "Pop Song 89", and "Get Up"
• Promoted with an 11-month world tour

Background

• With Document (1987), the band fulfilled its contract with I.R.S. Records
• Frustrated by overseas distribution, the band told I.R.S. head Jay Boberg in early 1988 that it was leaving the label
• Other labels offered more money, but the band chose Warner Bros. Records
• Reportedly between $6 million and $12 million, with the company's assurance of total creative freedom as the deciding factor
• After the move to a major label, the band defended itself in interviews against fans who said it was selling out

Recording

• March 1988: demos recorded at Robbie Collins' Underground Sound Recording Studio, Athens, Georgia
• Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills recorded basic demo tracks in two configurations
• Basic tracks recorded at Ardent Studios' Studio A, Memphis, Tennessee, from 24 May to 5 July 1988, produced by Scott Litt
• Recording and mixing resumed later that month at Bearsville Studios, Bearsville, New York
• Two new songs were recorded at Bearsville
• Bearsville sessions continued until 3 September 1988, about two months before release
• The album was meant to have one electric side and one acoustic side, but there were not enough acoustic songs fit for release
• Peter Buck bought an Italian mandolin-cum-lyre in 1987 and played it on three tracks

Cover

• Cover art painted by New York City minimalist line painter Jon McCafferty
• Promotional copies came in a mauve, cloth-covered Digipack with a debossed title and an embossed '4' over both R's
• Original pressings had the '4' spot varnished over the R in both "Green" and "R.E.M."
• The back-cover track listing shows "R. Stand" instead of "4. Stand"

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org · pt.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe, all University of Georgia students
• Released the single "Radio Free Europe" in 1981 on the independent label Hib-Tone
• Signed with I.R.S. Records in 1982

Members

• Michael Stipe (lead vocals), Peter Buck (guitar), Mike Mills (bass, vocals), Bill Berry (drums) until 1997
• Bill Rieflin served as touring drummer from 2003 until his death in 2020

Career

• Breakthrough hit "The One I Love" in 1987 from Document; signed with Warner Bros. in 1988
• Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992) made them leaders of alternative rock
• Continued as a trio after Berry left in 1997
• Broke up in 2011 after selling more than 90 million albums worldwide
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2024

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Green was a critical and commercial success.
• Robert Christgau of the Village Voice praised the first half of the album and panned the second half.
• Christgau's praise for the first half used words like rousing, funny, serious, and elegiac, while the second half drew complaints about dubious poetry and heavy tempos.
• Neil Hannon, frontman of The Divine Comedy, praised the unlikely lyrics and the mandolin on "You Are the Everything" and "The Wrong Child", calling the record small and intense.
• Band biographer David Buckley wrote that the album was sonically all over the place, a fascinatingly eclectic album rather than a unified artistic step forward.
• Bassist Mike Mills described the record as experimental and haphazard.

Reappraisal

• Kurt Cobain listed it among his top 50 albums of all time.
• Sounds ranked it number 62 on its 1989 list of the top 80 albums of the 1980s.
• The Times Magazine ranked it number 70 among the 100 best albums of all time in 1993.
• NME ranked it number 274 on its 2013 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Records

• US: double platinum, reached number 12.
• UK: peaked at number 27, the band's first gold album there.
• "Orange Crush" became R.E.M.'s first American number one single on both the Mainstream and Modern Rock Tracks charts.
• Worldwide sales reached four million copies.
• Certified platinum in France in 1993 and gold in Germany in 2003, per the listed certifications.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The US release was timed to coincide with the 1988 presidential election, and the band used its higher profile to criticize George H. W. Bush and praise Michael Dukakis.
• Stipe reportedly told his bandmates not to write any more songs in the R.E.M. style.
• The cover misspelling story: "Green" was once mistyped as "G4een", and the mistake was adopted into the design.
• On the back cover, track 4 "Stand" is listed as "R".
• On the final night of the 11-month tour at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, the band played Murmur and then Green in full, in order.
• "The Wrong Child" was performed live only once, on that final night.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

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