R.E.M. CALL IT A DAY

[porcy62]

"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." R.E.M.

source

Always loved the guys, I just loved the idea they where somewhere playing music.

Edited September 21, 2011 by porcy62

[RDK]

Yep, I discovered them very early on and they were the first band that I truly considered "my own." I'm sad, and yet I'm also glad that they're calling it quits before they turn into rock and roll dinosaurs (and some consider that they already have!). I have no doubt that they'll continue to happily make music, alone or together, and my chances of seeing them again in a small club have just increased considerably.

[Van Basten II]

Did enjoy them, hope they'll stick to their word and not make a comeback 5 or 10 years from now.

Edited September 21, 2011 by Van Basten II

[7/4]

shrug.

[Eric]

my best friend was a DJ at the student radio station in Lawrence ... I had him play "Chronic Town" straight through so I could tape it off the radio

loved that band ... glad their last couple albums were decent and all the IRS re-issues have been great

[MomsMobley]

Porcy, and do you know what else is going on in Georgia today? REM hq and their lawyer/manager/offices are located in downtown Athens, Ga.

Why make this utterly non-event of an announcement TODAY? Not a week, month, fortnight from now, etc?

REM DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE

Out of arrogance or ignorance, they chose to release this information when the whole world is watching Georgia re: the execution of Troy Davis...

... which, regardless of one's feelings about capital punishment, seems to have enough questions about it that waiting longer won't hurt anyone.

Yet REM (a band I never had any use for, at best they prove a band greater than sum of parts, none of which are interesting alone) pops their head out of the shadows now--

Like this was the question on ** anyone's ** mind.

Talk about a cocoon!!

Especially for a band which has enjoyed a nominally 'progressive' or at least locally/environmentally (in broad sense of the term) reputation.

REM DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE

[Aggie87]

REM DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE

I doubt black people care too much about REM either.

[Chuck Nessa]

My listening jumped over them.

[Jim Alfredson]

Never got into them but you gotta respect 31 years in this business.

[alankin]

They were still together? Huh.

[Leeway]

Not a fan really, but when one of their songs came on the rock/pop channel in the car, I did not switch stations.

Also, Michael Stipe had the sort of weirdness that makes rock fun.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

they should do a farewell concert and/or tour

[Quincy]

Yep, I discovered them very early on and they were the first band that I truly considered "my own." I'm sad, and yet I'm also glad that they're calling it quits before they turn into rock and roll dinosaurs (and some consider that they already have!). I have no doubt that they'll continue to happily make music, alone or together, and my chances of seeing them again in a small club have just increased considerably.

Pretty much me to a tee. I got in as close to ground floor as someone could not from Athens. I remember playing Chronic Town, Murmur, Reckoning, then back to Chronic Town because that's all there was to their catalog and I hadn't started tape trading yet. My interest lessened after Berry left though I did like the album before alright. The timing of the announcement surprised me but as you say, I'm glad the parting is friendly and I respect them for not doing a retirement payday tour as they weren't feeling it.

[Aggie87]

I got into them with Reckoning. I was living in Germany at the time, so missed Chronic Town and Murmur, but the album cover for Reckoning caught my eye on the "new release" rack at a local record shop. Bought it out of curiosity as much as anything, and got hooked. Dug 'em for the most part up through Up.

[GregK]

they should have done this in 96 when their drummer quit. They've sucked bad since then.

[BFrank]

Regardless of their spotty album output, I've never seen them put on a bad concert performance. Saw them 4 times in the 80's, lost track of them in the 90s, saw them on top of their game in '08 at SXSW at the relatively small Stubb's venue (and again in Berkeley later that year).

Probably just as well they hang it up (at least for a while) as they seem to be trying too hard to make a relevant album.

SXSW 2008

[DTMX]

I remember when WRAS (radio station of Georgia State University) played their first single "Radio Free Europe" backed with (I think) "Sitting Still" on the Hib-Tone label. Then they re-recorded it for IRS records and it was so much weaker and polite. Followed their career, but the only recording I ever bought was the underated "New Adventures in Hi-Fi".

[JSngry]

I thought they were already gone, like a decade or so ago. No?

[clifford_thornton]

The really early stuff is decent but I've never really cared for/about them. They should have quit a long time ago.

Porcy, and do you know what else is going on in Georgia today? REM hq and their lawyer/manager/offices are located in downtown Athens, Ga.

Why make this utterly non-event of an announcement TODAY? Not a week, month, fortnight from now, etc?

REM DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE

Out of arrogance or ignorance, they chose to release this information when the whole world is watching Georgia re: the execution of Troy Davis...

... which, regardless of one's feelings about capital punishment, seems to have enough questions about it that waiting longer won't hurt anyone.

Yet REM (a band I never had any use for, at best they prove a band greater than sum of parts, none of which are interesting alone) pops their head out of the shadows now--

Like this was the question on ** anyone's ** mind.

Talk about a cocoon!!

Especially for a band which has enjoyed a nominally 'progressive' or at least locally/environmentally (in broad sense of the term) reputation.

REM DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE

Hadn't thought of it that way.

[jazzbo]

Never really paid any attention to them. They had a good run.

[Dan Gould]

It wasn't coincidental that R.E.M.'s commercial rise happened at the same time that I started on my jazz oddysey. They epitomized almost every aspect of pop music of that era that I despised.

[ghost of miles]

Life and How to Live It

Those early IRS records are transcendental pop--the band had a mystical power back then (here's something I wrote about when they came to town to record LIFES RICH PAGEANT). They were so, so much better than the absolute crapola top-40 radio (with a few exceptions) of the early/mid-1980s... somebody really needs to write a book about the American post-punk 1980-85 indie-pop underground (OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE ain't it, IMHO) that R.E.M. came out of. They had their share of less-than-stellar moments after DOCUMENT, but AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE has worn well, and ACCELERATE is a late-period masterpiece. (I also think MONSTER, considered roundly disappointing when it came out, is an underrated album, their one foray into quasi-glam/pressures-of-fame territory.) But the records I still love best are those IRS ones... CHRONIC TOWN, MURMUR, RECKONING, FABLES, etc.

Edited September 22, 2011 by ghost of miles

[paul secor]

They were under/over my radar, but I'm glad their fans here and elsewhere enjoyed their music.

[Chicago Expat]

I think several of their post-Document albums were excellent. Green and Out of Time are still fantastic albums, and New Adventures in Hi-Fi is very underrated. There is a brilliance to New Adventures that never got recognized.

Reveal and Up were both pretty mediocre. Other bands were doing that sound way better than they were.

About a week ago, I started thinking that I might take a foray into the albums that followed Reveal and Up. Kinda strange that I had that outta the blue thought in the waning moments of the band's existence.

I think they've got a very impressive discography and I still find much of it enjoyable twenty years after first hearing it.

[MomsMobley]

Hadn't thought of it that way.

Believe me, if you were in Georgia or among justice/anti-capital punishment folks there's no OTHER way to think about it.

It shows you how blinkered they'd become-- Bertis at least is full-time Athens resident; Berry and Mills live outside town, Stipe still drops in, etc. The less I think about Peter Buck anything the better.

So meanwhile LOTS of people if not everyone are very agitated yesterday about Troy Davis and of all possible days to make this announcement they do so THEN?

Shows you what frauds-- or, if you want to be generous-- how careless they can be.

But I'm sure if a CELEBRITY death was imminent, starfu**ker Stipe would have been suitably humble, quiet or contrite.

Ghost-- I know you got Big Ears and while I disagree with you about even the IRS era ("Life's Rich Pageant" hype + vacuity soured me on these clowns forever), did you follow them backwards to, say, Gene Clark?

His catalog, with the Byrds but especially solo, is tremendous, with almost no low-lights, only a cpl period missteps. He might also be the greatest folk/rock songwriter of the era besides Hunter/Garcia.

Edited September 22, 2011 by MomsMobley