R.E.M.

Latest Release

Essential Albums

  • Automatic For The People (2017 Remaster)
    Automatic For The People (2017 Remaster)
    Automatic For The People (2017 Remaster)

    Although Spatial Audio is a relatively new technology, one of its gifts is the way it can present older, beloved albums as brand new and surface buried elements within songs that even the artists themselves didn’t remember being in there. When R.E.M.’s 1992 classic Automatic for the People was remixed in Dolby Atmos by original producer Scott Litt and engineer Cliff Norrell, bassist Mike Mills was taken aback by the way the album’s relatively sparse, acoustic nature lent itself so well to the immersive treatment. “With Automatic for the People, there's a lot of room, so you could separate the elements and hear them really clearly,” Mills tells Apple Music. “I thought it was exactly the perfect record from us to have that done to it; with the strings, there's so much air being moved by natural instruments. When the actual wood itself and the vibrations of the acoustic strings are moving the air, there's a different feel to it, and Atmos really lends itself to that.” Below, Mills highlights a few tracks from the reimagined album that might surprise even the fans who've memorised every groove over the past 29 years. “Drive” “John Paul Jones' strings were so evocative and they worked well with the accordion I was playing. I enjoyed that combination of sound when I heard it in Atmos. That was very exciting to me, the way he arranged those strings and the way they moved around. It was very symphonic without being overwhelming, and I really appreciated the way they worked with the acoustic guitar.” “Man on the Moon” “‘Man on the Moon’ stood out largely because of the vocals. I get a lot of credit for my background work, and rightfully so as far as I'm concerned, but [drummer] Bill Berry does not get enough credit for the quality of singer he is and the parts he comes up with. In the verses, there's this sort of almost Gregorian whole-note moaning going on behind them, and he's got a great deep voice when he wants to use it that way. In Atmos, you could actually pick it out; it adds a whole new dimension.” “Try Not to Breathe” “The triangle that gets played at the beginning, and I guess because we were playing dulcimer on that, it's just one of those things that because it's such an acoustically heavy song, the song breathes more, no pun intended.” “Star Me Kitten” “Those background vocals, that was an idea we took from ‘I'm Not in Love’ by 10cc. I recorded my voice singing eight different notes, and then we fed that into an eight-channel mixer and I played it like an instrument. So I played my voice, if you will. I think we loved that idea, we were really happy about it, but I don't think most people could really tell what was going on there, and you can hear it a little better in Atmos, for sure.” “Nightswimming” “I guess this information is out there, but that was the ‘Layla’ piano, the one Jim Gordon played on the Derek & The Dominos song, and we worked with that down in Florida. It's not the best technical-sounding piano in the world—no classical pianists would ever want that for a live concert—but for this song, there's a resonance to it. I actually believe that the history has something to do with how good it sounds—at least it felt that way to me when I was playing it. And yes, I think a little more of that comes through in the Atmos than it did in the actual stereo mix.”

  • Out of Time (2016 Remaster)
    Out of Time (2016 Remaster)
    Out of Time (2016 Remaster)

    In March 1991, the same month R.E.M. released its chart-topping seventh album Out of Time, the Canadian comedy group The Kids in the Hall debuted a dark sketch about suicide on its HBO series. In the routine, titled “The Long Note”, the Kids criticise a friend whose farewell note went on too long, while praising another friend’s more concise send-off: “I hear that R.E.M.’s turning it into a song,” remarks Dave Foley, one of the Kids. At this stage in the band’s career, R.E.M. had a (somewhat deserved) reputation as a group that specialised in what singer Michael Stipe called “big, heavy songs”. He and his bandmates had begun revising that reputation a few albums earlier, incorporating more of a mainstream rock sound, while also cautiously embracing sugary pop hooks. Out of Time has some of both—but it was a big, heavy song, “Losing My Religion”, that gave R.E.M. their final push into full-on stardom. “Losing My Religion”, based around a mandolin part by Peter Buck—who’d just begun learning to play it—was one of R.E.M.’s weirdest songs, with no guitar and no chorus: As Stipe once asked, “What kind of pop song is that?” But “Religion” showcased the contours of his craggy baritone, and his poised performance of the song’s enigmatic lyrics pushed it to No. 4 on the Hot 100 pop chart, making for the biggest hit of the band’s career. Though it was far less of a hit, “Shiny Happy People” is the band’s broadest attempt at bubblegum pop, one that prompted plenty of long-term R.E.M. fans to roll their eyes (Stipe, who seemingly agreed, called it “a fruity pop song written for children”). Meanwhile, on “Radio Song”, Buck moves from a glorious arpeggio to funky rhythm chords, and Stipe sweetly mocks the pap that’s coming from a Top 40 station, while acknowledging it has a hold on him. The guest spot from rapper KRS-One—“Baby, baby, baby, baby/That stuff is driving me crazy”—moves the song away from Stipe’s ambivalence, and replaces it with a moralistic disdain. “Near Wild Heaven” has one of bassist Mike Mills’ occasional lead vocals, and it returns R.E.M. to a guitar-based style the band members clearly weren’t ready to abandon. But the album is chiefly about musical evolution. Kate Pierson of The B-52’s adds background vocals—“Shiny Happy People” is pretty much a duet with Stipe—and the songs integrate saxophone, steel guitar, loops and harpsichord. And there are lush string arrangements throughout by Mark Bingham, an eclectic musician and producer who’d worked with artists ranging from Ringo Starr to avant-garde noise mangler Glenn Branca. Out of Time is shot through with artful, mysterious beauty, whether in the harmonised, wordless refrain of “Belong” or on “Me in Honey”, about an unexpected pregnancy. R.E.M.’s use of non-rock instrumentation was artistically successful enough that they continued it on their next album, Automatic for the People, the band’s middle-period masterpiece.

  • Green (Remastered 2013)
    Green (Remastered 2013)
    Green (Remastered 2013)

    Released in 1988, Green marked R.E.M.’s sixth album in as many years—an output made possible by the fact that all four band members were songwriters. On the group’s high-speed voyage from a weird, beloved alternative rock band to mainstream stardom, R.E.M. lost thousands of fans—but gained millions more, a process that only accelerated with Green. Singer Michael Stipe had mixed feelings about being on the charts beside Def Leppard and INXS, which is apparent in the opening track. “Pop Song 89” is a pop song that makes fun of pop songs for being vapid, and seems to doubt the entire enterprise of communication. It’s rescued from self-consciousness by Stipe’s droll ad-libs, Mike Mills’ fuzzed-out bass and Peter Buck’s whipsaw guitar licks. Stipe said “Pop Song 89” and “Stand”, which follows three songs later, were two of the band’s “fruit loop songs”—by which he meant they were colourful, overly sweet and longer on sensation than nutrition. “Get Up” and “Turn You Inside-Out” turn back the clock and return to the group’s earlier sound, as does “World Leader Pretend”, until a cello line (played by Jane Scarpantoni) and pedal steel guitar (by Bucky Baxter) ease up out of the arrangement. For every look back, the band members wanted to take two steps forward, which could mean anything from finding new chord progressions to introducing new instruments. So Peter Buck plays mandolin on three songs—and even takes up the drums on “Untitled”—while drummer Bill Berry switches to bass on a few numbers, allowing bassist Mike Mills to play keyboards and accordion. The lyrics on Green often dwell on contradiction, so in “Orange Crush”, which Stipe said was about a bon vivant who goes off to serve in Vietnam, the chorus presents two options—“Follow me/Don’t follow me”—and doesn’t favour either one, and in “World Leader Pretend”, a solitary character boasts about his sophisticated level of self-awareness, but the wisdom doesn’t seem to be helping him. R.E.M.’s album-a-year pace ended here, and when they returned three years later, it was clear that Green was a tentative first draft of a new sound based on the polar opposites of celebratory pop and moody acoustic ballads.

  • Document
    Document
    Document

    There are two primary sounds on R.E.M.’s fifth studio album, Document. One is the sound a beloved college-radio band emerging as a big-time mainstream rock group. The other is the sound of singer Michael Stipe going to war with the politics and economics of the 1980s. The first sound begins immediately, with Peter Buck’s massive, one-chord guitar riff to “Finest Worksong”, which hovers over the song like a colony of bees. It’s pure brawn, and a big change from R.E.M.’s start-up phase as arty folk-rockers. The effect is akin to a high school nerd who comes back to school in the fall with fearsome biceps. The second sound takes only a little longer to kick in. Stipe, who wrote most of R.E.M.’s lyrics, was an aesthete who used words to evoke a feeling, rather than describe it—and he showed an aversion to explicitness. On Document, released in 1987, he wanted to sing about the Reagan years, and that required him to be more direct. Stipe scattered clues throughout the album: Lines like “The time to rise has been engaged”, and “Enemy sighted, enemy met”, spur listeners to join the singer and act on their political beliefs. And Stipe adds satire and even comedy to the record, as in his description of yuppies who are “loyal to the Bank of America”. No one would mistake the album for a political pamphlet, and if you never heard Stipe mention that “Welcome to the Occupation” is about American interference in Central American politics—well, you probably wouldn’t surmise it. “Exhuming McCarthy” is more explicit in creating a historical link from the Red Scare of the 1950s to Ronald Reagan’s glorification of self-interest and wealth. Of course, no one is going to listen to coded political messages and critiques of capitalism if the music isn’t good, and Document is spring-loaded with memorable tunes—including the surprise hit “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”. It’s a joyful track about contemplating doomsday, one that’s full of humour, from the song title’s parenthetical phrase to bassist Mike Mills’ background vocal (“It’s time I had some time alone”) to Stipe’s madcap, high-speed lyrics, which simulate the feeling of mass-media overload.

  • Lifes Rich Pageant
    Lifes Rich Pageant
    Lifes Rich Pageant

    The members of R.E.M. liked the sound of John Mellencamp’s rock radio hits—especially their booming drums and weighty guitar sounds. So they hired his producer, Don Gehman, to guide their fifth album, Lifes Rich Pageant. Bassist Mike Mills later said they wanted to move away from the “murky feelings and sounds” of earlier albums, and Gehman’s goals were to push Michael Stipe to articulate clearly—which the singer had avoided—and to write lyrics that were less enigmatic and stated their themes more directly. Gehman made much more progress with his first goal than with his second. R.E.M. songs had always existed within their own strange and hermetic world where, as in the dream state that gave the band its name, images were vivid and personally meaningful, but didn’t always make sense. Still, Stipe had plenty to say on Lifes Rich Pageant. Released in 1986, the album was recorded in the midst of Ronald Reagan’s second term as president, and it marks the beginning of Stipe’s interest in political themes (not that it was evident to most listeners). He described the opening song, “Begin the Begin”, as a call to activism, and the lyrics mention Myles Standish, the bloodthirsty military commander of colonial Massachusetts. But not many rock fans understood the reference, unless they had an encyclopaedia next to their stereo. Other sentiments in the song were more self-evident, like “silence means approval”, or the observation that power is “the only vote that matters”. And in the next song, “These Days,” Stipe sings, “We are hope despite the times”—about as clear and direct as he can get. Elsewhere on Lifes Rich Pageant, Stipe sings about the genocide of Native Americans (“Cuyahoga”), the South’s defeat in the Civil War (“Swan Swan H”) and the oppression of political prisoners in Central America (“The Flowers of Guatemala”)—you don’t have to understand the subject matter to enjoy these songs. Drummer Bill Berry shines on the uptempo songs, and shows his slippery power on the chorus of “Hyena”, where he shifts to double time and plays accents on the ride cymbal. Though it didn’t hit Huey Lewis-like levels, Lifes Rich Pageant would become R.E.M.’s best-selling record up to that point, thanks to Gehman’s production, the band’s expert dynamics and two great singles: “Fall on Me” bolsters Stipe’s keening chorus and ardent vocals with countermelodies sung by Mills (“What is it up in the air for?”) and Berry (“It’s gonna fall”). And on “Superman”, a cover of an obscure 1969 song by The Clique, Mills takes his first lead vocal and throws himself into the song’s sweetly delusional theme.

  • Reckoning
    Reckoning
    Reckoning

    Many bands stumble with their second album, usually because the group members have exhausted their cache of good songs on their debut. But R.E.M. had such a large store of material that Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry actually discussed making Reckoning—the group’s 1984 sophomore effort—a double album. Their confidence was understandable: Through relentless touring, R.E.M. had become a great live band. And the band members showed off that growing muscle with Reckoning, which features a live sound that captured R.E.M.’s sweaty, dynamic, onstage sound. Many of the songs on Reckoning are powered by guitarist Buck’s rippling arpeggios, fast picking, fluid strumming and propulsive rhythmic sense. “Pretty Persuasion” and “Second Guessing” showcase the bright tone of his Rickenbacker guitar, and his riffs and licks define the songs and set them in motion—similar to the way Keith Richards did in The Rolling Stones, even though the bands have little in common. Yet for listeners who’d discovered the band via 1983’s cryptic Murmur—and who’d been left wondering just who these guys were, or what Stipe was singing about—Reckoning didn’t offer more clues. Instead, the album is full of water imagery (hazardous harbours, deadly floods, oceans, water towers and metaphorical “rivers of suggestion”) that deepens the mystery of the songs. And while the members of R.E.M. never sounded like they were from the South—they didn’t sound like they were from America, or even from Earth, given how out of time the music was—there is a small nod to the group’s home state of Georgia in “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville”, a loping, country-ish number that Mills, the band’s bassist, wrote as an entreaty to a girlfriend who was going back to her hometown of Rockville, Maryland for the summer. To promote Reckoning, R.E.M. debuted the gorgeous, keening ballad “So. Central Rain” on Late Night with David Letterman—an appearance that pushed the group even closer to the mainstream. As a result, the song reached a modest Number 85 on the Billboard singles chart—another small step forward in their path towards headlining arenas.

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About R.E.M.

Leaders of the ’80s college-rock underground who grew into glammy ’90s alternative superstars, R.E.M. followed their own offbeat muse. In the synthesiser-drenched New Wave era, the Georgia band wielded arpeggiated guitars indebted to jangly folk and ’60s garage rock, and stately mandolin drove their biggest pop and rock hit, 1991’s “Losing My Religion”, while grunge was bubbling up. The group—vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry—played their first show in April 1980, at a birthday party held in a crumbling church. From there, the quartet became a tireless touring machine and signed with I.R.S. Records, which released the band’s beloved 1983 debut LP, Murmur. R.E.M.’s sound evolved as the decade progressed—Stipe’s vocals grew from a mysterious mumble into an empathetic croon, and Buck’s guitars became louder and more aggressive—and as the group became more popular, they became more experimental. Their commercial high points, 1991’s orchestral tour de force Out of Time and the next year’s sombre Automatic for the People, eschewed the typical guitar-bass-drums configuration. After Berry left in 1997, the remaining trio dabbled in Beach Boys-esque pop, ambient synth soundscapes and percolating electronic rock. R.E.M. closed out their career in 2011 with the stellar, eclectic swan song Collapse Into Now; they broke up that year and have steadfastly refused to reunite since—a very in-character move for this famously iconoclastic band.

FROM
Athens, GA, United States
FORMED
5 avril 1980
GENRE
Rock

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