R.E.M. announces break-up.
"Hey, kids, rock and roll. Nobody tells you where to go, baby."
Earlier this month, R.E.M. announced that they were amicably going their separate ways and calling it quits as a band. As a fan of their many solid contributions to the rock world over the past three decades, I found this news fairly disheartening.
While some of the most recent material has left something to be desired, the band from Athens, Georgia created what I consider to be a spectacular run of albums between 1983 and 1996. Fortunate as I was to grow up around family with good taste in music, I was exposed to their influences from a fairly early age. My dad long claimed them as one of his favorite bands, and my step-mom shared a home town with Stipe and the boys. My mom and my brother took me to one of my first concerts, Radiohead opening up for R.E.M. That experience helped shape me as a (self-proclaimed) connoisseur of good music.
As is the case with many R.E.M. fans in their late 20’s/early 30’s, I was introduced to the sounds of R.E.M. through the commercially successful hit singles of the late 80’s/early 90’s. Songs like “Losing My Religion,” “Man on the Moon,” “The One I Love,” and “Shiny Happy People” dominated the alternative airwaves and flashed continuously across the MTV dial on our faux-wood side-paneled 19-inch picture tube television sets.
The true genius to this band, as I would later discover, lies in the earlier indie-slanted college rock albums of the early and mid 80’s. The jangle and buzz of a rock band realizing its unique place in music can be heard throughout an amazing span of records including Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, and Life’s Rich Pageant. I invite any music fan that only knows R.E.M. through the staples to start back at the beginning and let these albums grow.
For a brief retrospective, take a look at some of the videos below. R.E.M. will be missed.
