Why wasn't REM bigger?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by illwind64, Jun 8, 2019.

  1. illwind64

    illwind64 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    They were certainly the most successful post-punk band of the 80's but they never quite dominated that decade like Nirvana would do in the 90's. They had the songs, hooks, riffs, melodies, etc. I'm guessing they were a little "out of time" musically, plus Michael Stipe was not the world's greatest singer. Maybe they were just great musicians who could have had it but didn't want it?
     
  2. blind_melon1

    blind_melon1 An erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind....

    Location:
    Australia
    ?

    They were huge, especially the early 90's!

    Awesome band, (all eras).

    Miss them, miss them. :)
     
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  3. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Their sound didn't have wide audience appeal. REM rose in popularity around the same time rap and teen pop did, but the latter two had wider appeal.
     
  4. WildHoneyPie9

    WildHoneyPie9 Forum Resident

    Location:
    .
    They were absolutely massive in the early 90s (I would say from 1991 to 1995 was their peak). Their songs were big hits and played on radio and television all the time.
     
  5. Panther

    Panther Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tokyo, Japan
    Nope!
    [​IMG]
    The reason a select few post-punk groups like U2 and R.E.M. continued to be hugely 'big' in the first half of the 90s -- while most of their new-wave peers were working at 7-11 by 1992 -- is because groups like U2 and R.E.M. were never 80s' groups in the 80s. They had nothing in common with other big acts in the mid-80s. The times somewhat caught up to them by 1991-1992, and suddenly lots of collegiate, literate groups with guitars (and yeah, grungers) were on top of the charts.


    Anyway, from 1991 through 1995, R.E.M. sold something like 32 million albums. I think they were big enough.
     
  6. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    They did alright.:D

    Around the time of, erm, Out Of Time and Automatic For The People they had to be one of the biggest selling bands in the UK. They did pretty well after that, too
     
  7. Phil Tate

    Phil Tate Miss you Indy x

    Location:
    South Shields
    Don't think I agree with your basic premise - I'm not sure how they could have been any bigger, I'm struggling to think of another "alternative" band (as in, outside the absolute mainstream) who were more successful!
     
  8. Man at C&A

    Man at C&A Senior Member

    Location:
    England
    They got there, Out of Time and Automatic For the People were huge albums, commercially and critically. After Monster will have put off a lot of their more mainstream fans, they went in a less commercial direction with New Adventures In Hi-Fi and new things came along. In the UK it was bands like Blur, Oasis and Pulp. I'm not sure what would have overtook REMs success in the US in the mid 90s.
     
  9. Alternative4

    Alternative4 One of These Days I'll Get an Early Night

    Location:
    New Zealand
    REM were huge, even outside of the USA. They were all over MTV for the short time NZ had the station in the mid 90's. Even today some of their songs are radio staples.

    Also It's the end of the world as we know it was in ID4 and on the Simpson's.

    The song Man on the Moon has movie named after it!

    Everybody hurts was part of the music curriculum at the polytechnic I attended.

    I don't know if REM could be any bigger.
     
  10. Thievius

    Thievius Blue Oyster Cult-ist

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY
    They were about as successful as I would have imagined them to be. Its not like they struggled uncharacteristicly, they had a string of successful songs and albums in the late 80s straight through at least half of the 90s.
     
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  11. bvb1123

    bvb1123 Rock and Roll Martian

    Location:
    Cincinnati Ohio
    REM was huge for about 5 or 6 years in the late 80s to mid-90s. As an "alternative" band, i.e. outside the mainstream, they got about as big as you can be. I think they got as big as they wanted to be too. They never changed their sound to try to appeal to a more mainstream audience, if anything they did the exact opposite, becoming more and more of a niche band as time went on.
     
  12. sunking101

    sunking101 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Yorkshire, England
    Out Of Time and Automatic For The People catapulted them to being one of the world's biggest and most successful bands. They then consciously or subconsciously rejected that fame by releasing Monster. However they still remained a big band until they split, they just weren't as successful.
     
  13. illwind64

    illwind64 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    I stand corrected! I guess I was thinking more of the 80s than than the 90s. I just remember loving them in the early 80s and wishing they could been like the Beatles of their time. They were certainly at their peak of success in the early 90s but Nirvana sort of stole their thunder. The post should have been "why weren't REM bigger in the 80s?"
     
  14. SITKOL'76

    SITKOL'76 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colombia, SC
    Looking at their certifications in the US, 3 of their albums (Out Of Time, Automatic For The People, Monster) are certified 4x plat. in the US.

    The first 2 of those albums, Out of Time and Automatic For The People, sold a reported 18M copies WW.

    These albums aso topped charts throughout Europe as well.

    They never saw diamond selling status in the States like Nirvana did, but they were definitely a big deal, and their international presence was huge. The US isn't be-all end-all, a point I try to get accross constantly on here.
     
  15. Ghost of Ziggy

    Ghost of Ziggy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hell
    What’s next? Pink Floyd should have been more popular?
     
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  16. carrolls

    carrolls Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin
    U2 came from punk roots too and were more successful in every aspect than REM. You can airbrush U2 out of history if you like, but it does not change the facts.
     
  17. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    What??? They were absolutely massive, at least in Europe. They couldn't have gotten any bigger.
    Always a new surprise on this forum.
     
  18. Ghost of Ziggy

    Ghost of Ziggy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hell
    R.E.M were just as big in the early 90’s as U2.
     
  19. bvb1123

    bvb1123 Rock and Roll Martian

    Location:
    Cincinnati Ohio
    They weren't more popular in the 80s because they were the complete antithesis of what was popular in the 80s. No synths, no gated drums, no bombastic choruses. They truly stood for everything that decade wasn't. It's nigh impossible to get popular going that much against the grain. And they worked slowly, album by album, building a fan base of all the other people who also didn't like what music had become in the 80s. Their real breakout album, Green, came out in 88 so they were able to parley that into their huge successes of the 90s.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2019
  20. carrolls

    carrolls Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin
    Untrue. Not even in the same ball park.
     
  21. illwind64

    illwind64 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    You're right, I should have said REM were ONE of the most successful...
     
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  22. bvb1123

    bvb1123 Rock and Roll Martian

    Location:
    Cincinnati Ohio
    REM and U2 were pretty much on equal footing into the early 90s. Definitely. They were my two favorite bands at that time and I definitely do not remember U2 being a lot bigger than REM. They had more success earlier but they were about the same until the mid-90s.
     
  23. Ghost of Ziggy

    Ghost of Ziggy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hell
    Incorrect.

    Out Of time sold 18 million.

    Automatic sold 18 million copies, the same as..

    Achtung Baby 18 million

    But

    Zooropa sold only 7 million.
     
  24. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    They spent most of the '80s on a small, independent label, but all their albums in that era made the charts, most of them charting progressively higher. It was a more than respectful showing before they even got on a major label, at which point they were huge - maybe not as big as U2, but still big.

    And their sound wasn't for everyone - something I guess you can say for any act, but still. Not everyone likes word salad and jangle-rock. I was in college in the early '90s and they were already considered demigods...and even then I didn't really see why. They didn't cause a realignment like Nirvana did, but they were at least as popular among the college crowd I ran with.
     
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  25. carrolls

    carrolls Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin
    Out Of Time and Automatic were big albums but REM lost it a bit musically when Berry left during the NAIHF era.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2019

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