R.E.M.'s 'Green' Gets Deluxe Treatment Via 25th Anniversary Reissue

R.E.M.'s sixth album Green will mark its 25th Anniversary with a special expanded 2-CD edition due May 14. The bonus material is comprised of tracks recorded at a 1989 concert from Greensboro (get it?) North Carolina. The live disc will includes live versions of "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," "The One I Love," and "Perfect Circle" as well as "Low" and "Belong", tracks that were later included on the band's follow up studio album Out of Time. Green is the fifth R.E.M. album reissued in an expanded format, joining the previously released Document, Lifes Rich Pageant, Fables of the Reconstruction and Murmur. The band officially called it quits in September, 2011.

Five songs that were recorded at the Greensboro show but not included on the Green reissue will be released April 20 for Record Store Day on a limited edition EP.

From the Press Release:

R.E.M. achieved global success with the 1988 release of GREEN, the Athens, Georgia, quartet’s sixth studio album and first for Warner Bros. Records, which would be the band’s label home for the rest of their recording career. While R.E.M. was fast becoming one of the most acclaimed and revered acts in the U.S., GREEN was their first album to gain the attention of a worldwide audience. Packed with tracks destined to be definitive additions to the band’s canon, including “Orange Crush,” “Pop Song 89,” and “Stand,” GREEN was certified double platinum by the RIAA and doubled the domestic sales of the band’s previous release. GREEN continued R.E.M.’s dedication to the message of social consciousness, as evidenced by the album’s title, which would go on to became a ubiquitous buzzword for environmentally friendly initiatives.

To celebrate the landmark album’s 25-year anniversary, Rhino is releasing a two-disc deluxe edition that features the remastered original album accompanied by a disc of live performances taken from the penultimate show of R.E.M.’s 130-date Green World Tour. All 21 songs were recorded in Greensboro, North Carolina, on November 10, 1989, just miles from where Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry had their very first recording session at Mitch Easter’s Drive-In Studio in Winston-Salem.

The anniversary set is packaged in a hard clamshell box (similar to previous R.E.M. reissues) and comes with four postcards and a foldout poster, plus insightful liner notes by Uncut editor, Allan Jones. GREEN: 25TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION will be available on May 14 as a 2-disc set and digitally. The same day, the remastered album with original art and packaging will also be available on 180-gram vinyl.

In anticipation of the anniversary set, Rhino will release a limited edition, five-track EP as part of Record Store Day. This exclusive CD features a handful of performances from the Greensboro show that, due to space constraints, are not found on the Deluxe Edition, including the Green track “I Remember California” and classics like “So. Central Rain” and “Feeling Gravitys Pull.” Limited to just 2,500 copies, the disc comes with an original (non-reproduction) patch from the Green Tour. These patches were recently uncovered in the band’s vault. The LIVE IN GREENSBORO EP will be available for Record Store Day on April 20 for $7.98. For a list of participating stores, please visit wrecordstoreday.com.

The concert spread across the anniversary set and the Record Store Day EP captures a fiery set from R.E.M., which had been forged in the crucible of nearly one year of shows. R.E.M. performed most of GREEN (“Get Up” “World Leader Pretend” and “You Are The Everything”), while mixing in early favorites like “Fall On Me,” “Finest Worksong,” “The One I Love” and “Perfect Circle” from the band’s 1983 debut Murmur. The show also finds the band testing out new songs (“Low” and “Belong”) that would appear two years later on GREEN’s follow-up, Out Of Time.

GREEN: 25TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION
Track Listing

Disc One – Original Album
1. “Pop Song 89”
2. “Get Up”
3. “You Are The Everything”
4. “Stand”
5. “World Leader Pretend”
6. “The Wrong Child”
7. “Orange Crush”
8. “Turn You Inside Out”
9. “Hairshirt”
10. “I Remember California”
11. “Untitled”

Disc Two – Live In Greensboro 1989
1. “Stand”
2. “The One I Love”
3. “Turn You Inside Out”
4. “Belong”
5. “Exhuming McCarthy”
6. “Good Advices”
7. “Orange Crush”
8. “Cuyahoga”
9. “These Days”
10. “World Leader Pretend”
11. “I Believe”
12. “Get Up”
13. “Life And How To Live It”
14. “Its The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”
15. “Pop Song 89”
16. “Fall On Me”
17. “You Are The Everything”
18. “Begin The Begin”
19. “Low”
20. “Finest Worksong”
21. “Perfect Circle”

LIVE IN GREENSBORO EP – Record Store Day Exclusive

1. “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)”
2. “Feeling Gravitys Pull”
3. “Strange”
4. “King of Birds”
5. “I Remember California”