Anti-Climacus

LINK: Interesting article on the phenomenon R.E.M. used to be. I jumped on the bandwagon at the last possible moment to do so before they began selling out on their principles (this would be '93, I believe).

I always found it interesting that R.E.M. has something in the neighborhood of 30 songs they had written before they had a record deal that never got recorded (even Becky has probably never heard "Bodycount," "Permanent Vacation," or my personal favorites of the old tracks, "Narrator" and "Wait!"). Somewhere around when Peter Buck and Michael Stipe wrote "Gardening at Night" (whilst sitting on a mattress in front of the converted church they lived in during college), they set about self-mythologizing to an extent you'd never believe (Peter Buck often attempted to claim that he wasn't very skilled as a guitar player. Speaking as one myself, I feel free to pronounce that claim utter bullshit).

And then 1995 rolls around, and they're doing big goofy tours again, firing their longtime manager, making megadeals, continuing on without one of their original members, and generally doing everything humanly possible to violate the good memories their fans still might have regarding them. Time was, Michael Stipe was something like the definitive word in American cool (I still have a notebook that consists entirely of things he referenced that I went out and read, listened to, etc... and he was right about what was good about 90% of the time); now he's just your embarrassing uncle with the bad toupee whom everyone is to nice to say anything to.

As Peter Buck once said, "R.E.M. is part lies, part heart, part truth, and part garbage." Amen to that.