4 replies to this topic

[High_Speed_Train]

In trying to explain why the 40 songs were chosen, I made a small exercise. I took the 40 most recurrent songs in concert setlists and cross-referenced them against the songs in the compilation.

The source is the remchronicle.com, although in reality only 34 songs were compared, because there are the 3 new songs, plus the 3 songs from Collapse into now which never made it into setlists.

The assumption was that, if a song is frequently played live, then it would logically follow that this must go into the compilation. This turned out to be not entirely true.

Here are the results, there's a mark (*) next to the songs that made it into the compilation:

001. Losing My Religion     (*)
002. The One I Love     (*)
003. Man On The Moon     (*)
004. It's The End Of The World As We Know It     (*)
005. What's The Frequency, Kenneth?     (*)
006. So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)     (*)
007. Orange Crush     (*)
008. Pretty Persuasion    
009. Fall On Me     (*)
010. Begin The Begin     (*)
011. Finest Worksong     (*)
012. Sitting Still     (*)
013. Driver 8     (*)
014. Everybody Hurts     (*)
015. Feeling Gravitys Pull    
016. Get Up     (*)
017. Walk Unafraid    
018. Drive    
019. Auctioneer (Another Engine)    
020. Pop Song 89     (*)
021. Imitation Of Life     (*)
022. The Great Beyond     (*)
023. These Days    
024. Seven Chinese Bros.    
025. Electrolite     (*)
026. Bad Day     (*)
027. Little America    
028. Life And How To Live It     (*)
029. Country Feedback     (*)
030. Let Me In    
031. Harborcoat    
032. I Believe    
033. Radio Free Europe     (*)
034. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville     (*)


There is a match in 23 out of 34 songs (two thirds of the compilation). Here, the assumption holds true.


What about the other eleven songs? How do they rank in the rem chronicle? Here they are:



1. Gardening at night (36)
2. Talk about the passion (52)
3. Leaving new york (67)
4. Stand (70)
5. At my most beautiful (72)
6. Supernatural Superserious (91)
7. Living well is the best revenge (97)
8. Nightswimming (107)
9. New Test Leper (142)
10. Shiny happy people (291)
11. Sidewinder (366)



Two songs located at the bottom (Sidewinder and Shiny) made it into the compilation. This means that there were other reasons to justify their inclusion.


Another conclusion is that all of the 14 highest ranking songs made it into Part Lies, with the exception of #8, "Pretty Persuasion".


While "Pretty Persuasion" made it into the I.R.S. compilation, "Drive", which is #18, didn´t make it to either "In Time" of PLPHPTPG.


I'm not trying to prove anything, this was simple curiosity and a trivial exercise, trying to understand why "Drive" was left out for a second time.

[elkokolores]

Interesting! I wonder how a farewell concert of R.E.M. would have sound like, if there had been one...

[Sweden]

Not sure why there should be a connection between which songs the band think work well live, and which songs they like best on record or which were singles or hits, but in any case will a song released in 2008 have a tough time in such a comparison even if it was played pretty much every night of every tour since its release... See Living Well and Supernatural for reference.

[wrong child- jr.]

Also must consider that older songs had a chance of being played live more times than songs from REM's last 9 or 10 albums. The band didn't tour as much as they used to back in the IRS days.

[High_Speed_Train]

Sweden, on 25 January 2012 - 08:49 AM, said:

Not sure why there should be a connection

Sweden, I have proven there's a strong connection, the match between live songs and compilation songs is 66%. (The first 34 songs at least, if the spectrum was broadened to let's say the first 60 or 70 this would be even stronger).

Songs that appear in a compilation are the songs that people would most likely hear (or would have heard) in concert and the probability of this is 66%.

Sweden, on 25 January 2012 - 08:49 AM, said:

any case will a song released in 2008 have a tough time in such a comparison even if it was played pretty much every night of every tour since its release... See Living Well and Supernatural for reference.

Sweden I made clear what my methodology is, accounting differently for new songs (like Supernatural) would require a change of method, so what you say is true, but I have no intention of developing another method.

I started this because I was intrigued by the choice of those 40 songs, there's nothing logically (at least from the point of view of concerts' setlists) that would make a case for Sidewinder, Shiny People, being included and Drive or Pretty Persuasion left out.

Those songs were included because other criteria was used, and that would require a different exercise with a different method. I appreciate your input, honestly.