Why R.E.M. Don't Get The Credit They Deserve

The Cure played Texas Stadium in Dallas in 1992.

 

The Edge was probably the greatest single influence on electric worship band guitar, for a few years there anyway.

R.E.M. are remembered for helping break “college rock” into the mainstream, not necessarily having imitators. They helped make it ok to make rock songs that weren’t about the same old things, so I’d say any band with vague lyrics and semi intelligible lyrics would have been descended from R.E.M. that would include probably any of the indie and shoegaze bands, like, I’m not an expert on indie bands but Sebadoh, Onelinedrawing, Diiv.

 

I don't dislike REM; at certain moments, I dare say I liked them quite a bit. But at the end of the day, they're just not all that interesting. Not to say they're a bad band by any stretch, but overall it's pedestrian rock music with a somewhat whiny vocalist and oft benign lyrics couched in esoterica. I don't hold "selling out" against them, and the too-many-albums they released after; for my money, they achieved a level of success radically disproportionate to what seemed possible back in the IRS days. By any metric, I'd say they've been more than adequately accredited.

 

Actually, that's not usually how that works. When a tastemaker site gives a strongly positive review, many of the hipster sheep (not saying all hipsters are sheep, but that element) follows like lemmings.

I've got a friend, God love him, who always starts to like a 20-30 year old band as soon as some hipster tastemaker annoints it as brilliant. You can almost set your watch to it.

Pitchfork is actually far better known for its brutally dismissive, often savage tear-downs of albums, both current and classic. They've lightened up a bit in recent years. But they're still certainly not the kind of corporate shills you find at publications like Rolling Stone.

 

This is not entirely accurate. First, "Friday, I'm In Love" was a fairly decent-sized radio hit in my market (Houston, Texas) at the time, and has only grown in stature and popularity in the ensuing years.

Also, Depeche Mode had already had a Billboard #13 US Pop Chart hit by 1984, and had four additional singles crack the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart before the end of 1987. And perhaps more importantly, they were all over the US dance chart during those years, racking up 12 Top 50 US Billboard Dance Chart hits, one of which was a #1, by the end of 1987.

All of this to say that even in my market, they were extremely well-known by virtually anyone who paid any attention to alternative music. Were they truly mainstream? Not until Violator in 1990. But they were practically celebrities among alternative fans, even in Houston, Texas.

And just to puncture another stereotype, the person who turned me on to Depeche Mode initially, in 1984, was black (although he did have a lot of white friends). And the person who got me deeply into them a couple of years later was my girlfriend at the time, who was Pakistani.

 

I wouldn’t disagree with much of what you wrote however, they had four platinum (1 of them 2x platinum) records and two top 20 hits plus a smattering of other songs. We don’t define (or at least I don’t) mainstream success only by singles—it’s also album sales as well. By your definition, The Clash didn’t have mainstream cross over success yet they are seen as a band that made that transition. They had one album platinum that was double platinum, three gold albums and 1 top 10 hit, 1 top 30 hit and a third one that topped out at #45 (granted they had much fewer albums but even at their most popular they only reached double platinum the same as The Cure).

I also don’t think you can assume based on #18 that the album was ignored on mainstream radio.


You can still be a mainstream act without -enter sting every single market in the nation.

 

That was lol..though I like stipe and REM.

 

I agree..feel artists should continue making new music and some of their earlier works not then seen as good can sometimes and many times later is reappraised.

 

Correct..and for humor will add the famous decca records executive rejection of signing the Beatles quote ….”guitar groups are on their way (have already gone) out…lol.

 

Yeah, that dude at Decca was going to be right eventually -- and, well, here we are!

I think part of the issue is also a shift in, so to speak, the rules of association among young people. I mean... "bands"? I'm not saying there are no bands around (looking at you, South Korea...), but... as a social formation, a stable association of creative individuals with agreed-upon roles, it's much less of a thing now, in Anglo-American culture and the West, than it was back when that Decca exec seemed so hilariously wrong.

I think young people, now as then, can enjoy group collaboration, but I also think that now, sooner than then, it will seem like an affront to a young person's dignity when, inevitably, the vocalist and/or songwriter starts to go all alpha on the others. Who these days would put up with headstrong geniuses like Lennon and McCartney? In the face of Lennon's cruelty and McCartney's bossiness, any possible Harrisons or Starrs would find they had better things to do with their time than to put up with that stuff.

In this respect, the "groupiness" of R.E.M. was among the most amazing things about them. The shared songwriting credits, the strong sense of group creation, the clarity of the contribution by each member. I mean, each element -- Stipe's lyrics and vocals, Buck's distinctive guitar, Mills' harmonies, Mills' & Berry's rhythm section -- seems like an indispensable element of the group sound. Exhibit A, if I may: the clear loss they suffered with Berry's departure. And he was "just" the drummer!

Again, not saying there are no longer indie bands -- of course there are. I've just been admiring the group contributions made by the players in Japanese Breakfast and on Snail Mail's first album. But... as helpful and appreciated as they are, at some level they're just employees to the alpha. And that's just very different from the rules of association that R.E.M. was able to establish among themselves.

Cheers, RH

 

These are really not good examples. Japanese Breakfast is first and foremost Michelle Zauners baby while Snail Mail is the outlet for Lindsey Jordan. Neither has ever been a "band" in the classical sense of the word.

 

Of course. It's hard to argue from examples, when there are a world of examples to support any point one wishes to make.

My little point is that the Zauner/Jordan model seems to me dominant these days: there's a band, and the band makes its contribution, but it's really a vehicle for the singer-songwriter, as you note. Examples of more fully collaborative bands that I can think of -- bands on the model of R.E.M. -- are most typically some decades old at this point -- perhaps, I speculate, from a time and place that more easily supported band-y social arrangements. I'm sure there are still younger, more fully collaborative bands forming themselves and making music, but so far as critically and popularly dominant artists go, they seem to be exceptions. Just my impressions, of course, but I do sort of watch these things.

Here, for example, is acclaimed music's take on the most critically acclaimed artists of the 1990s. Lots of bands of boys with guitars, including R.E.M. at #3!
Here, by contrast, is acclaimed music's take on the most critically acclaimed artists of the 2010s: strictly speaking, very few "bands" in the top 25!

What's changed? Well, demographics, of course, is a major contributor. Also, the ascendence of video games, social media, and YouTubing as things for creative young people to do with their leisure time in lieu of music. But maybe also, I speculate, some shifts in social patterns among the young.

Cheers,
RH

 

This brings us back to the original question. I think R.E.M. were always overpraised by the music press and there was a backlash from fans. Especially with their “return to form” albums which were far from great. Also, they were masters at manipulating the medium. Michael saying, oh, “I’m straight, I’m queer, I’m bi,” and that being mentioned in every article promoting the album. And “this is our ‘sex’ album” and “this is our ‘death’ album,” and those statements still being repeated today.

it’s an interest argument to at gets brought up over and over, I think it’s because they were very big back in the day and at the end I think people felt short changed. U2 could fall into a similar trap if they all of the sudden apologized for their last 4 albums and tried to put out an album that sounded like War. “Oh you mean you were ripping us off all that time?”, fans may as well ask. As of now, their fan base has accepted what they are.

I disagree with this. Pitchfork single-handedly takes it upon itself to promote the current state of (un)popular music, promoting every critical darling act that comes and then goes. Their article on “the artists who will shape the music of the next 30 years” is promoted with a picture of entirely female acts. I would put money down on the ultimate success rate,or lack there of, of those very artists.

 

80's R.E.M. was pretty much the antithesis of what most people (young and old) now want to celebrate about the decade.

 

I would agree that when current indie darling Angel Olsen is releasing an EP of 80s synth pop covers, among them “Safety Dance,” “Eyes Without a Face,” and “If You Leave,” R.E.M.’s “we refuse to use synthesizers” stance of the early 80s seems a little dated. While it was possible to like R.E.M. and New Order at the same time in the 80s (I did), there was a fault line there, and R.E.M. were on the “guitar” side of it, and now the 80s synth pop that R.E.M. and their fans so disdained at the time has seen its critical stock rise.

 

What a ridiculous, clichéd assessment of Pitchfork. Because at the same time Pitchfork digs deep and writes about artists that are not especially well-known. Say what you want but most Pitchfork writers are in it for the right reason: A passion for music.

 

REM needs to have better marketing of their music even though they might not be creating anything new. Other bands, most notably the Beatles, can reissue old material by repackaging, get songs into movies, tv shows or commercials and if possible, create a Broadway show that features their repertoire to gain attention. For a band to maintain popularity long after their heyday takes some effort by the record company and artist.

 

I'd be horrified if millenials shared my music tastes. Some of their stuff sounds like chipmunks singing along to ringtones.

 

I don't think it was quite as cynical as that. I think when Bill left it fundamentally changed the way the band worked from 'Guys-In-A-Room' to 'Guys-With-Portastudios', and the songs on Reveal and Around The Sun were fundamentally studio creations that likely had never been played by the band in a room even once before the mix was finished. When Monster was made, the band played the songs many, many times together before committing to tape. The Reveal and Around The Sun songs were flattened studio creations that were too long and too boring to have retained that original form if the band had had to play the songs dozens of times during the writing process. I'm sure the decision to return to 'Guys-In-A-Room' for Accelerate and Collapse Into Now was an organic, natural progression probably pushed by Peter because he was bored with six minute bleepfests about planets with drum machines.

 

This hasn’t aged well:
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18667-arcade-fire-reflektor/amp/

they’ve also added a disclaimer to some of their reviews stating that they make money when someone clicks the links and buys the music that they review.

 

No question Beatles Apple company is king of marketing, began in early seventies with the red and blue albums, and continued on in the seventies and subsequent decades with various released items. Beatles throughout the decades are the model for mega marketing and it’s paid off.

 

Apparently the New Adventures reissue is getting some new press. Their special CD editions were always great, Warners did a good job with those. Like a Rhino reissue, but at launch. I still have a few.