REM: when did you come in?

I can't imagine there are many people here who started as early as me, most REM fans didn't come across them until Green at the earliest! Green is a great album, as are some of its succesors, but I'm still very much an IRS guy!
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In my case it was in early summer 1985, when "Fables of the Reconstruction" was still fairly new out, I think it charted in the UK at 36. I was twelve years old, my brother's friend had the track Driver 8 on his mix cassette, which he played when he gave me a lift one morning. There was some good stuff on that mixtape, though a lot of it I already knew so Driver 8 was a standout track for me....I asked him which band it was, he told me "an American indie band called REM". He had the Fables cassette at his home and he let me copy it... I was actually very artfully inclined at the time so I sketched out the cover art of the original cassette for my own copy!!
At the time I was a young but fully-fledged metalhead, listening to Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, AC/DC (not metal, I know)… so an indie group like REM were an interesting change of pace. Fables was enjoyed throughout that summer alongside my hard-rock records. It gave me an appreciation for underground rock music, especially US underground music, bringing me to eventually enjoy bands like Husker Du and Concrete Blonde, also encouraging me to but anything I saw with IRS Records on the label (lots of great stuff released through them). The next year "Life's Rich Pageant" when it was released became the first CD I ever bought.

 

Saw them very early on at Maxwell's and it was love at first sight. Especially after the show when Michael Stipe asked the DJ to play some Patsy Cline. They were obviously special from the jump.

 

I came in with document I was 17 at that time.
I love the IRS years but I think people are to harsh about the later years.
Up and new adventures are great albums too

 

First album I bought was Automatic, my older brother had got me into them, he had bought all their earlier albums between Out of Time and Automatic, we were both huge fans by the time Monster arrived, so that was my first day one album of theirs and the Monster tour was my first ever gig in 1995. Feel very lucky to have seen the original line-up. I'm of the belief they were the best studio album band ever between Murmur and Monster, I also really love Up, but all other albums post 1995 were not as good imho. Very glad they have split up, despite loving them dearly.

 

I collected all kinds of rock in my teens and resisted them for so long....
Then one day I heard the newly released Automatic For The People...
Blown away.

Been a fan ever since. One of my biggest regrets not seeing them live...

 

Saw them at the Paradise in Boston, summer 1983. They were great despite nearly being blown away by the opening band, the Replacements.

 

Chronic Town and I stayed til the end. Only one really mediocre album--and it was late in their career and the same album everyone else mentions.
Saw them twice at The Capitol Theater (Passaic), '84 and '85

Enjoyed the ride.

It's weird though how I rarely listen to them now.

 

1985, when I saw the "Driver 8" video on MTV. Been a huge fan ever since.

 

Around 1992 I guess. Yes, thanks to MTV.

 

They were big in Boston well before Green.

The only reason for that to be an introduction would be age of listener, or a market that had radio which didn't support new music

Was there a market where "It's The End of The World As We Know It" or "The One I Love" weren't huge? There were earlier songs, but I don't see avoiding these.

Green seems late.

 

Saw them on the Life’s Rich Pagent tour but got into them big time with Reckoning. They played a small new wave club at the South Jersey shore called the Ivory in late 1983 as relatively unknown.

 

I’m one of the Green era bandwagon jumpers that you mentioned. To be fair, I was only 8 when it came out. I remember hearing Stand and loving it at that age. I also have memories of Pop Song 89 and Orange Crush. The first album I had was Out of Time followed by Automatic. From there, I started digging through the back catalog and got turned on the the IRS stuff. What a great journey. To this day, they are among my 5 or so favorite bands of all time.

 

An oft told story. But I guess one more time will not hurt.

First noticed them in 1981 or 1982 while reading the schedule for the old 9:30 Club. It's an easy name to remember.

Around Fall of 1982 I was riding the bus to Georgetown and noticed someone we then called a "Waver" holding a copy of Chronic Town. About 2 months later I was at a party and spent most of my time chatting up someone without success (although I would marry her 22 years later). Suddenly the music cranked and a bunch of people started dancing. It was Chronic Town. I bought it the next day.

Was a big fan up to and including New Adventures and then saw them as having diminishing returns. I resurrected my interest and grabbed their last 2 albums on release. Saw them three times in concert.

 

sam them in paris in 1984 or 1983!! if i remember well it was with a great french band: les innocents

 

REM was on the fringes for me for a while. I remember Radio Free Europe being played on college radio but I never caught the name of the band. Now, I don't recall whether the version of Radio Free Europe I remember from the radio was the indie single or the re-recording for IRS.
Radio also played 1,000,ooo and, again, I didn't get the name of the band. I assumed they were British (don't know why) and hit the import stores looking for a single called "A million years" with no success.
It wasn't until South Central Rain that I picked up my first REM single and, oddly, it was a British import - which confirmed (in my mind) that they were a British band. So I really got my wires crossed at this point. But it was hearing Pretty Persuasion that prompted me to buy the album. The triple play of those plus Harborcoat just floored me.
It took until Dead Letter Office for me to secure a copy of 1,000,ooo (OMG, I didn't know it was the "a million years" song I loved so many years ago!!!!). The (included) Chronic Town EP was so good that it finally prompted me to purchase Murmur, so I got my copy of Radio Free Europe.
So I had a strange, spiky introduction to REM.

 

Fables is the first one I remember seeing in the record store, but they didn’t really hit with me until the summer of 86 when I heard some college kids playing a tape of Reckoning at a party and talking about them. That was right before Pageant was released. I was tempted to buy Pageant then but for some reason I didn’t. Document was the first album of theirs I bought when it was their current release, and then I went back and bought all the other stuff. I guess it probably took about two years from noticing them in 85 to going all-in.

 

I'd never heard of them before "Losing My Religion" but it wasn't until "Monster" that I became a fan.

 

I've been aware of them since hearing "Wolves, Lower" on a Trouser Press flexi-disc way back in 1982, but I didn't start buying their albums until Life's Rich Pageant.

 

I grew up with them. I was born in '88, for reference. My mom had this CD in her collection, along with Out of Time:


This was released in 1991, so I think that she heard 'Losing My Religion' and went out and got these two CDs. She played the best of collection with the masks on it all the time (a brilliant set of I.R.S. years tunes). So they were always around my house. I also remember seeing some of their music videos on MTV in the very early '90s ('Everybody Hurts' for sure).

I've never been a huge fan, but I've heard all of their albums and I like them. Automatic for the People is my favorite.

 

Indeed - REM was getting press attention from the get-go, but Life's Rich Pageant seemed to be the first album to really put them on the pop audience's radar, and Document was the breakthrough.

 

Our local Long Island radio station was playing them after "Murmur" was released. "Radio Free Europe" was enough to make me notice, but not enough to make me buy. I was 15 and making bus boy money. When "Reckoning" came out and "South Central Rain" started being played, I fell in love with the weird new southern gothic band and their beautifully surreal lyrics. At the time, my buddy's brother, a student at Emory, had both lps. I borrowed them and recorded them on cassette.

They remain one of my top 5 bands and their music was the soundtrack to my late teens and early 20s.

Outside of The Ramones, I can't think of a band whose FIRST 4 records are collectively that good.

 

1982 Chronic Town ep

 

First thing I heard was "The One I Love". Didn't see them until probably the last or 2nd to last tour. Surely bucket list for me, but in retrospect, damn glad I went. They did one hell of a show. Probably the only thing I have is Greatest Hits and Monster. Still love "What's The Frequency Kenneth" and "Losing My Religion".

 

Murmur

 

Me too. I think the original poster underestimated their popularity.