Goodbye R.E.M.

Yes, the venerable college rock band that made it big has called it quits after 30 years in the music industry.

R.E.M. were one of the first bands championed by college radio to really make it big. Started in 1980 in Athens, Georgia, R.E.M. were a very melodic, roosty and quirky little band, the type of band that could only be formed in a small college town like Athens. Formed by two music fans (Michael Stipe and Peter Buck) and two college students (Mike Mills and Bill Berry), R.E.M. recorded their first single "Radio Free Europe" on the tiny Hib-Tone record label. This song made it on to the band first retrospective, Eponymous, and was re-recorded for the first album. The Hib-Tone single has a much raucous feel to it than the rerecorded version, partly because the band was forced to change their sound early in their career. It's one of my favourite "folktales" of indy rock. Bassist Mike Mills had lots his bass guitar (or it was stolen) and was forced to find another bass for a gig that night. The only thing he could find was a Rickenbacker bass, the type that Paul McCartney played. He used the bass and the band liked the rootsier, jangly sound it had, so he stuck with it. Without that serendipidous find, R.E.M. may have sounded like a very different band...

http://youtu.be/tyH7NEHfYIo



In 1982, R.E.M. released their first EP, Chronic Town, on IRS Records, then a very small label. R.E.M.'s debut album Murmur helped establish the label as one of the more important ones in independent music. They followed this up in 1984 with Reckoning, which featured their first wellknown single "South Central Rain", which got them some MTV play.

http://youtu.be/msWi0c4tHV8



The early work of R.E.M. had a mysterious quality to it. The music was rootsy, driving and melodic, but singer Michael Stipe had a tendency to mumble, making his lyrics hard to understand. At the time, there were rabid fans desperately trying to decipher Stipe's lyrics. This was long before the internet, so no information was out there. Their 1985 album, Fables of the Reconstruction, was indicative of this, with murky lyrics and a gloomy musical feel. 1986's Life's Rich Pageant saw the band lightening up a bit, with their first commercial radio play from the song "Fall on Me" (one of my favourite R.E.M. songs, coincidentally).

http://youtu.be/lf6vCjtaV1k



1987 saw R.E.M.'s first big breakthrough into mainstream radio with Document (this was preceded by 1986's B-sides collection Dead Letter Office). The album went platinum on the strength of "The One I Love", which hit the Top 20 in the USA and Canada. Document also saw the band becoming more political, which Stipe railing against the current Reagan administration.

http://youtu.be/j7oQEPfe-O8



In 1988, R.E.M. left IRS Records for Warner Brothers, where they would spend the rest of their career. IRS released Eponymous, a singles collection shortly after the band left the label. Their first album for Warner, Green, was a tighter, more raucous effort from the band, and spawned two big singles, "Orange Crush" and "Stand", as well as the popular tune "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" and the controversial video for "Pop Song '89", featuring three topless dancers (who were friends of the band) and a topless Michael Stipe. Stipe said that if he could go shirtless, why not women in the video? Of course, the video was rarely shown at the time, and banned from MTV.

http://youtu.be/xjMwfDFypa4



1991 saw Out of Time, a more laid back album, come out. This album featured the huge hit "Losing My Religion" and the upbeat "Shiny Happy People", featuring the vocals of Kate Pearson of fellow Athens' band The B-52s, as well as a tune featuring rapper KRS-One. A surreal moment saw the band playing on Sesame Street doing "Smiling Happy Monsters".

http://youtu.be/xpqGvYN5p-I



in 1992, R.E.M. released Automatic for the People, which turned into the big breakout commercial success for the band, with singles "Drive", "Everybody Hurts" and the sublime "Man in the Moon", a tribute of sorts to doomed comedian Andy Kaufman. This album has a much more sombre tone than their last two albums, but hangs together very well.

http://youtu.be/1hKSYgOGtos



R.E.M.'s next album, Monster, was a start departure to their previous two, dominated by driving, fuzzed out guitars and a more primal look from Michael Stipe, who had begun shaving his head. "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", a brutal rocker about a disturbed fan who confronted Dan Rather, and "Bang and Blame" hit the Top 40, the first perfomed live on David Letterman with Dan Rather on vocals. "Kenneth" is one of another one of my favourite trivia songs, since it has an uncencored swear word in it that's aired on commercial radio without complaint.

http://youtu.be/lVJ2dT34dg8



During the tour for Monster, Bill Berry suffered a brain aneurysm on stage in Switzerland and collapsed. Mills and Stipe both had surgery on the tour as well. They wrote their next album, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, while on tour, but the album saw the band slipping out of the public consciousness. EMI bought the IRS catalogue in the late 90s, releasing all their albums in remastered form, plus three compilations.

Bill left the band in 1997 and the remaining band members continued as a trio, using session players to fill Bill's role on studio recordings. Their first album as a trio, Up, came out in 1998 to a mixed reception. Their single "Daysleeper" was underwhelming. The album did very well in Europe, where the band was much more popular than in the US. They recorded the soundtrack to the Andy Kaufman biopic, Man in the Moon, in 1999, bouyed by the single "The Great Beyond".

http://youtu.be/k_JnCWT-_O8



In 2001, the band released Reveal and Around the Sun followed in 2004. Neither album received much notice in the US, but the single "Imitation of Life" reached the Top 10 in the UK. It also has a wonderfully trippy video to go along with it. Warner also release the label spanning compilation, In Time, in 2003.


http://youtu.be/0vqgdSsfqPs



The bands fourteenth album, Accelerate, came out in 2008. The album saw the band sounding much more focused and tight, which a more rock-based sound. In 2011, the band's last full length album came out, called Collapse Into Now. While both sold well, it was clear that R.E.M.'s time on the radio was long gone.

The band just announced a career spanning retrospective called Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage will be released on November 15th.

R.E.M.'s success paved the way for countless bands from Athens. The B-52s owe a debt of gratitude. They were famous during the late 70s, but their late 80s resurgence was helped in part to R.E.M.'s interest in their music. The scene was chronicled in the documentary Athens, Georgia Inside/Out. Other great bands of the era include the Flat Duo Jets, Pylon, Oh-OK, Matthew Sweet. Dreams So Real and Love Tractor. Athens also had a pop resurgence in the 1990s with the so-called Elephant Six collective, featuring bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control.

As for side projects, Mike Mills formed the skewed pop act The Minus 5 with Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows. One of the more interesting project was the Hindu Love Gods, formed by the band (minus Michael Stipe) and Warren Zevon, doing classic R&B tracks. The album they released was out of print for a long time, but was re-released in the mid 200s.


http://youtu.be/_4A-kuqn2Bs