D6 • the silhouette’s art & culture magazine
music
thursday, october 6, 2011
the end of r.e.m. as we know it
assessing the overdue breakup of indie rock pioneers r.e.m. For fans familiar with R.E.M.’s fabled backstory, that famous chorus of “Radio Free Europe” stings with irony. Even though R.E.M. has sold a staggering 50 million records and had their status as rock legends cemented with an induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in the early 1980s R.E.M. sounded like absolutely nothing on the radio. In fact, “Radio Free Europe”, along with the rest of R.E.M’s landmark debut album Murmur, began a quiet revolution in the world of popular music. Murmur’s muddy vocals, imperceptibly mumbled by lead singer Michael Stipe, combined with a fluidly melodic bass and 1960s guitar jangle to form a sound that would soon become known as “college rock”.
Throughout the 1980s, R.E.M. explored and developed their unique style, releasing a series of indisputable masterpieces. Things changed in the early ‘90s after R.E.M. signed a mammoth multi-million dollar record contract and released their trademark single, Losing My Religion. All of a sudden, R.E.M. were the biggest band in the world. Despite their mushrooming popularity, R.E.M. continued to write quality music without comprising their style or artistic values, until 1997 when drummer Bill Berry bid farewell to the band. Then things sort of fell apart. Throughout their career, R.E.M. took a staunchly democratic approach to songwriting, with each member of the band
contributing equally and receiving equal credit. The five albums R.E.M. released without Berry range from disappointingly hollow to flat-out awful, and aside from emphasizing Berry’s importance to the band, they contribute very little to the R.E.M. story. After 14 years of aimless musical wandering without their drummer, R.E.M. finally decided to call it quits earlier this month. It’s about time. It pained me to watch R.E.M.’s pitiful decline over the last decade. It felt like going through a long and hideous divorce, my beautiful love of their early albums obscured by my hatred of their contemporary work. With each new R.E.M. record released after their 1997 expiration date, our relationship grew increasingly stale. Unfortunately, I needed R.E.M. to
disband before our divorce could be finalized. On Sept. 21, our divorce finally went through and it has filled me with mixed feelings. Re-listening to R.E.M.’s great works of the ‘80s and early ‘90s reminds me of why we fell in love. Although R.E.M.’s post 1997 work tarnishes their discography, R.E.M. did remain a fantastic live band right up until they announced their breakup. R.E.M. certainly did go beyond their expiration date but does it affect their status as one of the founding fathers of indie rock? I don’t know. I think there’s only one way to put it. “This one goes out to the one I love. This one goes out to the one I’ve left behind.” • Paul Fowler