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September 21, 2011

REM Calls It A Day - After 31 Years

"To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening."
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14 comments:

  1. Michael HollowaySeptember 21, 2011 at 9:22 PM

    R.E.M. - three letters. WHO - three letters - infinite reunions. Could be another conspiracy here. Just kidding.

    I'll never forget the summer of 1993 when I discovered the "Green" album. I think I'd heard "Superman" when it came out, and even had it on a compilation tape I'd made - but didn't know who it was - imagine my surprise when I started digging into their discography.

    Found this while fact checking: The Clique - (I Am) Superman (1969) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g-O4FntXPs

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  2. JeremySeptember 22, 2011 at 11:29 AM

    Thanks for posting, I found out from this piece.

    I found REM through summer camp, Out of Time was well received. The kids I went to camp with prefered Document and Green to OOT. I later got all their albums on cassette from BMG. I found Life's Rich Pageant to be a favorite along with Chronic Town. Those two stand out as my all time faves. Begin the Begin and Superman highlight the top of the list from that album, while I love every track from Chronic Town, especially Wolves, Lower and 1,000,000.

    Glad I got to see them in Toronto in 1995. Monster is not my favorite album, so that tour was bittersweet for me, I would have prefered at that time to hear more older material. Luscious Jackson opened for them.

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  3. wayneswhirldSeptember 22, 2011 at 11:47 AM

    Allan - is awesome to see this tribute to REM, especially during the shocking Sox Sept. downturn. Hopefully they squeak through to the postseason and then somehow recover their mojo.

    I will miss REM greatly as an active band, but it probably time for them to "leave the party" as Michael put it, even while ending on a high note with CIN.

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  4. laura kSeptember 22, 2011 at 12:08 PM

    I saw this online yesterday and sent it to Allan. Very suprising news, if understandable.

    Allan and I saw REM in 1986 in both Burlington, VT and NYC, then (I believe) 2 more times since then. (What years?)

    I love many of their albums (Reckoning, Murmur, Document, LRP, Accelerate), love parts of others (Monster, Automatic for the People, Out of Time) and cannot stand some of the others (Up, Reveal).

    The most recent album is truly awful, it made me sad to think they put out such a re-tread, so perhaps that led naturally to this announcement.

    The place REM always lacked to me was performance. Stipe is a great singer and writer, but not a very good front man. For me a band that's not great live will always be incomplete.

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  5. laura kSeptember 22, 2011 at 12:09 PM

    Plus REM holds a special and improtant place in Allan and Laura History. :)

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  6. JereSeptember 22, 2011 at 12:25 PM

    I was 12 when the "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" video came out. That was my intro to REM. A kid endlessly sifting through old junk in the middle of nowhere. I could relate. And the chorus just added to that strange feeling we kids of the 80s were brought up with--that one day the missiles would launch and the world would be over.

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  7. laura kSeptember 22, 2011 at 12:33 PM

    And the chorus just added to that strange feeling we kids of the 80s were brought up with--that one day the missiles would launch and the world would be over.

    That's something the kids of the 80s share with their parents and older siblings. That feeling began in the 1950s - it's reflected in much popular culture of the time - and continues on to this day.

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  8. allanSeptember 22, 2011 at 12:49 PM

    So many people say CIN was a return to form. It sounded more natural than Accelerate, but Stipe's lyrics are pure shit -- and they ruin most of the music. I was going to write about the album shortly after it came out, but never got my notes together.

    We saw them on successive Fridays, I believe, Halloween 1986 and then in NYC at Felt Forum. Saw them at Radio City in October 1987 on the Document tour and then at the Meadowlands (or Brendan Byrne?) on the Green tour in 1989. I think I was disgusted enough at that time to not see them again! On the next tour, I think they decided to stop playing their old stuff so much.

    Jesus Christ, did I hate Green back then!!! First LP for Warner Bros., and I thought it was the worst piece of sell-out crap ever! (Plus it came out on Election Day 1988. Boo.) I interviewed Stipe and Berry when Out of Time came out in 1991 - which was cool - and I was beyond thrilled a few days later when I spoke to their producer Scott Litt on the phone and got him to admit that the band had consciously tried to write commercial-sounding songs for Green. It was some kind of personal vindication!

    Anyway, I don't mind Green at all now.

    Now it's time for bootleg-lover Peter Buck to open the vaults!!!

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  9. allanSeptember 22, 2011 at 7:35 PM

    The band "had reached the decision to break up while putting together a greatest-hits retrospective to be released in November".

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  10. allanSeptember 22, 2011 at 7:44 PM

    And the chorus just added to that strange feeling we kids of the 80s were brought up with--that one day the missiles would launch and the world would be over.

    I would never have said that imminent nuclear war was a pervasive fear in the mid-to-late 80s. The very first hint I have ever heard of that is Jere's comment. It certainly was not a topic of alternative music in the US (unless I'm blanking on a lot of music).

    Plus, the chorus of the song is so upbeat - it was often played as the band's final song of the night - a big celebration. Certainly not a dirge or anything scary or ominous.

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  11. laura kSeptember 23, 2011 at 9:25 AM

    I would never have said that imminent nuclear war was a pervasive fear in the mid-to-late 80s.

    Indeed, many people felt the world had become much safer with the collapse of the USSR. I would disagree, but it was pervailing thought at the time.

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  12. laura kSeptember 23, 2011 at 9:26 AM

    So many people say CIN was a return to form.

    UGH! The songwriting is crap and the vocals are crap. If that's a return to form, it was high time to break up.

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  13. allanSeptember 23, 2011 at 12:31 PM

    Sample Stipe lyrics from the beginning of two songs from "Collapse Into Now":

    This is not a parable
    This is a terrible
    This is a terrible
    Thing

    &

    With the walk
    And the talk
    And the tick-tock clock
    With the rock
    And the roll
    And the bridge
    And the toll

    ------------------------

    There is no music good enough to redeem or help you overlook shit like that.

    And yet the final two minutes of the first song cited above ("It Happened Today") can easily stand alongside anything they have ever played.

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  14. allanSeptember 23, 2011 at 12:40 PM

    One more:

    I'm in a part of your dreams
    That you don't even understand
    It's just like me to overstay my welcome, man

    ------------------

    This is beyond lazy - it's insulting to the listener -- tacking on a "man" so the line rhymes. ... But I should save all of that for any post I write.

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