A mutual appreciation of stellar punk and post-punk-era acts, including Patti Smith and Television, first firmed up the bond of friendship between vocalist Michael Stipe and guitarist Peter Buck, who put R. The foursome then spent much of the next 18 months building a following the old-fashioned way, crisscrossing the southern US playing grassroots-level shows and feverishly writing strings of songs.
Meanwhile, R. IRS introduced R. Initial sessions began late in , but the label insisted on pairing the group with a new, high-profile producer in Stephen Hague OMD , PiL , New Order , who placed the emphasis squarely on studio perfection.
Unhappy with the turn of events, R. M, requested the opportunity to record their debut with Mitch Easter. By his teens, he had discovered punk rock through Patti Smith , Television , and Wire , and began playing in cover bands in St. By , he had begun studying art at the University of Georgia in Athens, where he began frequenting the Wuxtry record store. Peter Buck born December 6, , a native of California, was a clerk at Wuxtry. Buck had been a fanatical record collector, consuming everything from classic rock to punk and free jazz, and was just beginning to learn how to play guitar.
Discovering they had similar tastes, Buck and Stipe began working together, eventually meeting Berry and Mills through a mutual friend. In April of , the band formed to play a party for their friend, rehearsing a number of garage, psychedelic bubblegum, and punk covers in a converted Episcopalian church. At the time, the group played under the name the Twisted Kites.
By the summer, the band had settled on the name R. Over the next year-and-a-half, R. At the time, the bandmembers were still learning how to play, as Buck began to develop his distinctive, arpeggiated jangle and Stipe ironed out his cryptic lyrics. During the summer of , R. Released on the local indie label Hib-Tone, "Radio Free Europe" was pressed in a run of only 1, copies, but most of those singles fell into the right hands.
Due to strong word of mouth, the single became a hit on college radio and topped The Village Voice's year-end poll of Best Independent Singles. The single also earned the attention of larger independent labels, and by the beginning of , the band had signed to I.
Records, releasing the EP Chronic Town in the spring. Like the single, Chronic Town was well-received, paving the way for the group's full-length debut album, 's Murmur. With its subdued, haunting atmosphere and understated production, Murmur was noticeably different than Chronic Town and was welcomed with enthusiastic reviews upon its spring release; Rolling Stone named it the best album of , beating out Michael Jackson 's Thriller and the Police 's Synchronicity.
Murmur also expanded the group's cult significantly, breaking into the American Top The band returned to a rougher-edged sound on 's Reckoning , which featured the college hit "So. Central Rain I'm Sorry. Bands that imitated these very things ran rampant throughout the American underground, and R. By , the American underground was awash with R.
Just as the signature R. The album reflected the group's dark moods, as well as its obsession with the rural South, and both of these fascinations popped up on the supporting tour. Stipe , whose on-stage behavior was always slightly strange, entered his most bizarre phase, as he put on weight, dyed his hair bleached blonde, and wore countless layers of clothing. None of the new quirks in R. Gehman had the band clean up its sound and Stipe enunciate his vocals, making Lifes Rich Pageant their most accessible record to date.
Upon its late summer release in , Lifes Rich Pageant was greeted with the positive reviews that had become customary with each new R. Several months after Lifes Rich Pageant , the group released the B-sides and rarities collection Dead Letter Office in the spring of Nevertheless, their audience had grown quite large, and it wasn't that surprising that the group's fifth album, Document , became a hit shortly after its fall release.
Produced by Scott Litt -- who would produce all of their records over the course of the next decade -- Document climbed into the U. The following year, the band left I. Records, signing with Warner Bros. The first album under the new contract was Green , which was released on U. Election Day Green continued the success of Document , going double platinum and generating the Top Ten single "Stand. The Athenians were now, alongside U2, arguably the biggest rock act on the planet, yet they had somehow managed to preserve their credibility, becoming ethical role models for the next generation of bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, who were now bulldozing through the radio and MTV blockades REM had been undermining for ten years.
And just when it seemed the band were settling back into their role as one of the biggest 'alternative' acts in the industry, Berry left. The remaining three attempted to reconfigure under pressure, and in this climate, Up, their eleventh hour, could've been a downer. It wasn't. Instead, it seemed to offer the band an escape route from themselves, necessitated the first use of drum-machines on an REM album since Murmur, and restored them to their natural habitat, the peripheries rather than the epicentre of pop music.
But still, there are nagging doubts. The unsullied nature of REM's track record even Monster, widely regarded as their first turkey, could boast songs as strong as 'I Don't Sleep, I Dream', 'Tongue' and 'Strange Currencies' means it's harder to be surprised by each consecutive album.
Perhaps the relative commercial belly-flop of the last two long-players is down to this peculiar passion fatigue. REM essentially an amped up avant-folk act marrying truth and distortion, heritage and noise have kept all their oaths, yet no matter how fluently the musicians shift-shape under Stipe on quasi-ambient tracks like 'Airportman', anytime the singer vents those distinctive pipes, it's still unmistakably the band that crawled from the south two decades ago.
All this was weighing heavy on the writer's mind when he clapped ears on Up last October. Had REM become victims of their own high standards? Is it so easy to take a fine band for granted? Curious questions perhaps, and whatever the answers, Up is full of remarkable bolts from the blue; the arch 'Lotus', the achingly pretty Pet Sounds balladry of 'At My Most Beautiful', the electric satori of 'Hope', not to mention more impenetrable folk-noir material like 'The Apologist' the second REM song in 18 years to feature the chorus "I'm sorry" and 'Sad Professor'.
Indeed, after half a year of living ambivalently with the record, a last-minute review on the headphones moments before speaking to Stipe yielded strange new properties to the reporter. It was high time for a reckoning. Or, if you prefer, a reconstruction of the fables. As you've no doubt deduced by now, I was that reporter. And as I rolled the tape and Michael Stipe gradually woke up, it got interesting trying to reconcile this friendly character with any of his public faces the mumbling Murmur cherub, the frazzled, dog-sick showman of the Green tour, or the deposed King Of Comedy invoking Andy Kaufman and spastic-dancing his way through 'Man On The Moon'.
You get the impression Stipe likes discussing the soul rather than the strategy of REM, unlike your usual rock 'n' roll diplomat on the press roundabout.
Or maybe, with one side of his brain still in Nod, he's more comfortable waxing impressionistic than specific. Anyway, the reason we're talking at all is because of the forthcoming summer shows, specifically the Irish date at Lansdowne Road on July 16th. The announcement of these gigs came as something of a surprise after the band had initially stated that they weren't interested in touring the latest album.
However, spurred on by the success of a selection of fan club shows one of them broadcast by MTV , the three elected to give it a shot. For his part, Stipe hastily deflects any conjecture that the band had doubts about cutting it live after Bill's departure "That didn't drive anything" or even that the dynamic has changed significantly.
I mean it was really fun, y'know. Laughs I guess I do if I came off as relaxed. It's like, different for TV, just because they're really close, and you gotta be really very much of a different type of entertainer I guess. I dunno, I'm shooting from the hip here, but I suppose it's different. Is the scope for finding new ground to cover becoming narrower as the band gets older? It's hard to talk about, because it's kind of like our job not to think about it and not to overanalyse it, 'cos to do so diminishes it somewhat.
So I think I've always come off in the press as being a little defensive or dumb-headed or holding back about that, and really what it is, is to try to put it in terms that are easily talked about. It kind of steals the fire, which makes it all sound very romantic, and it's kind of not, you're just doing what you do.
After the release of Green, as Stipe found himself on the receiving end of some serious scrutiny from the press, the singer declared, "Rock 'n' roll is a joke, people who take it seriously are the butt of the joke". And true enough, while a piece of music rarely benefits from being written about, music criticism can sometimes be useful as a way of learning about material the reader has never heard. A much fairer shake than we have from other quadrants.
At this point there's a knock on the door. At last, this accidental tourist's missing luggage has arrived. A little more at ease now he's located his belongings particularly a cherished copy of the last Grant Lee Buffalo opus Stipe settles down to discuss the last time he performed publically in Ireland, with Patti Smith at Liss Ard in September, But she's a pretty compelling subject. So compelling in fact, that her role as both subject matter and guest vocalist transformed 's 'E-Bow The Letter' into a ghostly astonishment of a song.
Here, the band were melding melancholic soundscapes to free verse more successfully than anyone since Smith herself did on Wave in
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