(AND I FEEL FINE) Thirty-one years later, R.E.M. has decided to call it quits. Says the band, "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."
[Stipe adds: "A wise man once said--'the skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave. We built something extraordinary together. We did this thing. And now we're going to walk away from it."]
Take them as synecdoche for the entire American underground music scene of the 1980s and its commercial evolution therafter, or just as a damn good band with a mountain of songs many of us will be listening to until we're old and grey, from mystical to loud to incomprehensible to vaguely political to the simple earnestness of "Everybody Hurts" and "Nightswimming." My favorite R.E.M. song is a list of at least ten R.E.M. songs, and I'm grateful to have had their music in my life.
It sounds cheesey, but I would not have gotten through high school without their music.
ReplyDeleteThis year for my birthday, The Husband has been tasked with tracking down the 1991 MTV Unplugged session and putting it on my iPhone. I could listen to Half a World Away again and again and again.
About two weeks ago, I was finally able to find one of the Bingo Hand Job shows online to download; I used to have it on a cassette, but that was long ago.
ReplyDeleteDitto, ditto, and ditto.
ReplyDeleteFondest memory: College, buying Automatic for the People and waiting to get back to the dorm before we listened to it. Then hearing "Nightswimming," and crying.
Thanks, guys.
I have a ton of stuff on cassette, including the BHJ show and others that I got through trades on the REM bb board back with the Internet was a baby. I also still have my fan club vinyl. Le sigh. This is making me so sad.
ReplyDeleteI'm mildly devastated. "Out of Time" was the soundtrack for my angsty jr. and sr. years of college. I took my 12-ear-old sister to her first rock concert: the Monster tour at Hershey Park. A little band called Radiohead opened the show.
ReplyDeleteOne of my best concert memories was seeing them in 2005 in Seattle. It was in a fancy theater and they let everyone in the first few rows stand in front of the stage. During "Losing My Religion" Michael Stipe touched me on my forehead. I was blessed during "Losing My Religion!!"
And Jenn C., I TOTALLY agree about that version of "Half a World Away." Mike Mills was always my fave, and that song always gets me.
I just want one more tour...
whoops, I'm so distraught that I confused high school and college. I was angsty in high school!
ReplyDeleteWell, should have happened when Berry left, but what a run.
ReplyDeleteIf we're giving our ancient history stories, I remember meeting someone Much Cooler Than Me who liked R.E.M. I was excited to mention to MCTM that I liked The One I Love, at which point, of course, it was pointed out to me that they had totally sold out, and everything post-Life's Rich Pageant was shite.
ReplyDeleteFor a while the annoyingness tainted the band for me, but I got over it, and enjoyed their music from both sides of the Arbitrary Line of Coolness.
I'm so grateful for their music. I think just last week I tweeted that I was listening to Nightswimming on repeat because it's one of those perfect songs. A couple years ago I went to the Hollywood Bowl with some friends and family to see them and my brother and I ran into someone we went to high school with at the show. We didn't go to high school in LA or stay in touch with this person, so it was that sort of kismet-y thing of this is the music of our youth.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I thought Green was the dividing line. Or so I was told by my self-righteous middle/high school cohort.
ReplyDeleteEverything after Document sucked, except for Automatic for the People, Monster, "Day Sleeper," "Imitation of Life" and, maybe, the even-numbered songs on Out of Time.
ReplyDeleteTwo quick REM anecdotes.
ReplyDeleteIn 2003, they were on their "Greatest Hits" tour. They started the tour in Vancouver, and were in town the same weekend as Radiohead. On consecutive nights, I saw two of my favorite bands - and I was in the front row both nights. Even as REM were doing their more experimental albums (Up, Reveal, Around the Sun), they remained one hell of a live act. From my view in the front row, I could see backstage, and Thom Yorke watched most of the REM show from the wings. Yorke has often talked about what an influence REM had been on Radiohead, and it's clear Yorke is a huge fan: he was dancing around and completely losing his shit whem REM played "What's the Frequency Kenneth". Yorke later joined them for "E-bow the Letter" (he did the Patti Smith part) and "It's the End of the World...". The next night, Michael Stipe returned the favor, and joined Radiohead onstage for "Karma Police". When Stipe started singing "This is what you get...", Yorke just started laughing. Like, he couldn't believe he was listening to Michael Stipe sing words that Yorke himself had written.
About 16 months ago, my father suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. I was out at the time, enjoying a New Pornographers concert; I got the news when I checked my voicemail after the show. The BF offered to pick me up, but I needed a little time before I could face the reality of packing and plane tickets and organizing my life in Calgary to put it on hold for a few weeks. I hopped on public transit, then wandered through the neighborhood on my way home. Playing on my iPod: Automatic For the People. I listened to that album SO MUCH when it came out (and throughout the rest of the 90s); it is, I think, the greatest album I've ever heard. I hadn't listened to it a lot in the last few years, but I NEEDED to listen to it that night, to feel its stories of anger and disillusionment, loss and acceptance. And it helped: to get from "Try Not To Breathe" and "Sweetness Follows" ("It's these little things, they can pull you under...") to the breathtaking beauty of "Nightswimming" and "Find The River" (still two of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard) helped me process many of my own conflicted feelings and steel myself for the difficult days ahead.
I was a bit of latecomer to REM, really falling in love with them in the early-90s (there's not a lot of exposure to a band like REM in smalltown PEI in the 1980s), and I've loved them ever since, even through the dark days (Up, Reveal, the unfairly maligned Around the Sun). I'm glad they had their renaissance with Accelerate, and Collapse into Now is as good a place to leave as any. I'm sorry to see them go, but I'll cherish their catalog (certainly one of the best catalogs in rock) for a long time.
New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Accelerate are also terrific albums. Adam, your "even number" theory of Out of Time only works if you exclude Shiny Happy People (#6) but include Me In Honey (#11). :)
ReplyDeleteKatie, I was at the exact same concert at Hershey Park (96 or 97). Smalll world. I was also in high school and it was my first concert other than New Kids on the Block (shame).
ReplyDeleteMe neither!
ReplyDeleteMy least favorite REM concert anecdote is the time that I waited in line to get tickets for the second night of their two-night engagement in Macon (not being able to go the first night), only to find that they had decided not to have a second night. I did not get to go to the concert, but I did get stuck in traffic as I headed back into town. (Sigh.) As it happens, I never made it to an REM concert. And, yes. That makes me sad.
ReplyDeleteI get the concept that they should have called it quits when Bill Berry retired. But apparently, he refused to retire if retirement would break up the band, and he needed to retire. So.... I'd also say that they've done some good stuff post-New-Adventures-in-HiFi, so I feel fine about the timing, personally. Despite my personal lack of concert-attendance. (Sigh.)
I still have my t-shirt from that tour! It's got a big brown bear on it with a question mark.
ReplyDeleteAnd no shame, my second concert was New Kids on the Block. I am proud of my first one: Huey Lewis and the News circa 1985!
When I was first learning to play, Automatic For The People was out. I was already a fan, but this was one of the first albums to pop out while I was becoming aware of what chords were and how their voicings sounded, and that record -- from the first arpeggiated Dm riff in Drive to the D-variant riff in Find the River -- was an object lesson in the application of these tools. There weren't a lot of albums out at that point where the acoustic guitar was a true feature, providing melodic information rather than mere texture to beds of electric noise, so to have something so beautiful and stark was a real treat. You could learn any one of those songs just by listening to the sliding of Peter Buck's hands against the strings (In Man on the Moon, for instance, he starts at C and then slides the entire fingering up two frets, creating a beautiful, dissonant D variant that I'm not sure of the name of right now), and with each riff I felt like Buck was showing me something new you could do with the guitar. Rocks and sticks became hammers and awls.<span> </span>
ReplyDeleteMan, I've gotta go listen to that album some more.
You've never been to an REM concert?! Wow. That surprises me.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem right, does it?
ReplyDeleteREM was on my list of bands to see before they die (or break up) but I never made it to a show. Bummer.
ReplyDelete