R.E.M. - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: Rock City, Nottingham, Britain, 11-21-1984

I would like to post what R.E.M. did for the BBC. I still haven't fully tackled that because it's tricky. Although a lot of it has been officially released, there's some that hasn't. However, I do have Volume 1 ready to go, and I figure I should post it sooner rather than later because it's a significant improvement over what's on the official version.

This concert has been included in the official release "R.E.M. at the BBC." However, they only included part of the concert. Probably that's because only that portion was actually broadcast on the BBC at the time. But in this case, there are bootleg versions of the full concert with soundboard quality. So I've used the official version where possible and the unreleased version for the rest, although in fact the two versions have the same sound quality, in my opinion. In case you're curious, these are the unreleased tracks: 1, 2, 12, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 31.

There was another big problem. On both versions, the vocals of lead vocalist Michael Stipe were way down in the mix. It's well known that in the early years of R.E.M., for whatever reason, Stipe didn't like for his lyrics to be easily understood. I figure he deliberately had his voice turned down as part of his effort to obscure what he was singing. So for all the songs, I boosted the vocals dramatically. It's still hard to make out the lyrics due to his mumbling and slurring, but at least it's not as bad as before.

Most of the songs are originals, but there are a few interesting covers, such as "After Hours" by the Velvet Underground, "20th Century Boy" by T. Rex, "See No Evil" by Television, and "Moon River" by Henry Mancini.

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 talk (R.E.M.)
02 Harborcoat (R.E.M.)
03 Second Guessing (R.E.M.)
04 Hyena (R.E.M.)
05 talk (R.E.M.)
06 Talk about the Passion (R.E.M.)
07 West of the Fields (R.E.M.)
08 [Don't Go Back To] Rockville (R.E.M.)
09 Auctioneer (R.E.M.)
10 So. Central Rain [I'm Sorry] (R.E.M.)
11 talk (R.E.M.)
12 Sitting Still (R.E.M.)
13 Old Man Kensey (R.E.M.)
14 talk (R.E.M.)
15 Gardening st Night (R.E.M.)
16 9-9 - Hey Diddle Diddle - Feeling Gravity's Pull (R.E.M.)
17 Windout (R.E.M.)
18 Driver 8 (R.E.M.)
19 Pretty Persuasion (R.E.M.)
20 Radio Free Europe (R.E.M.)
21 Little America (R.E.M.)
22 Wendell Gee (R.E.M.)
23 1,000,000 (R.E.M.)
24 talk (R.E.M.)
25 20th Century Boy (R.E.M.)
26 Just a Touch (R.E.M.)
27 talk (R.E.M.)
28 We Walk - After Hours (R.E.M.)
29 See No Evil (R.E.M.)
30 Carnival of Sorts [Boxcars] (R.E.M.)
31 Moon River (R.E.M.)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16003459/REeeM_1984_BBSessonsVolum1RckCtyNttinghmBrtain__11-21-1984_atse.zip.html

The cover photo only features singer Michael Stipe. It's from a concert in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1984. I actually have another album posted here that's the full concert from there.