R.E.M.

In the '80s and '90s, when underground rock music on independent labels exploded with word-of-mouth popularity and critical acclaim and the opposing audience for mainstream pop also surged ahead to new levels of commercial enormity, a four-piece rock and roll band from Athens, Ga. forged an unforgettable career out of walking the line between the two.

R.E.M. was the acceptable edge of the unacceptable stuff; the hard-working college-rock band loved by critics from the start, and recommended by those in the know, until its gradually growing fanbase eventually made it one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

Throughout its career parabola -- from the raw, Southern art-rock of the early '80s to the singles-driven widescreen pop monoliths of its middle age, and down the slope of commercial success to the post-Bill Berry years -- R.E.M. has made engaging, self-respecting pop-rock songs and albums, staking out its claim as not the best rock band of its day, but one of the most consistent, and well-aging of its peer group.

R.E.M. also helped bring the concept of college-rock, or alternative rock, to the public consciousness. During its formative years, despite such accolades as its full-length debut Murmur being named top album of 1983 by Rolling Stone magazine, the band was largely ignored by commercial radio. But the R.E.M. bandwagon kept rolling and picking up new acolytes, largely due to the group's tireless touring schedule, and the embrace of college radio stations, which gave the band heavy airplay throughout the '80s. They were the visible face of this expansion of the music industry, in which bands that weren't incredibly popular by major-label standards could succeed by appealing to an "alternative" fanbase.

Ironically, as much as the band exemplified alternative rock, their subsequent crossover into mainstream pop stardom helped render that concept nearly obsolete. One could hardly call such latter-day R.E.M. albums like Out Of Time and Automatic For The People (each quadruple platinum) "alternatives," as would be the case with bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, dubbed with similar tags in the early '90s even as they topped the Billboard charts.

But name-calling aside, R.E.M.'s catalog, now some 13 albums strong, is one of the more accomplished of the modern rock era. And the apparent key to the group's success is that over two decades and counting, its members have always made the music that they wanted to make; what kept them interested and excited about rock. That in itself should be a fitting legacy.

Album reviews

Reveal
Warner Bros. (2001)
Bill Berry, we miss you.

Up
Warner Bros. (1998)
Since its 1982 debut, Murmur, R.E.M. has succeeded in paving the non-mainstream promenades of rock music. The band has outlived virtually all of its contemporaries with muted fanfare, relatively little controversy and irreverence to the commercialism that has come to plague today's music industry.

New Adventures In Hi-Fi
Warner Bros. (1996)
R.E.M. released New Adventures in Hi-Fi in the middle of its 16th year of existence. And like the diary of any 16-year-old, the album illustrates a band going through some major changes.

Monster
Warner Bros. (1994)
Monster marks a key transitional period for one of modern rock's most accomplished juggernauts.

Automatic For The People (Recommended)
Warner Bros. (1992)
1992's Automatic For The People is arguably the finest album of R.E.M.'s extensive career.

Out Of Time
Warner Bros. (1991)
In completing the band's ten-year evolution from underground art-rockers to the biggest pop band in the world, Out Of Time set a confusing precedent for the '90s, in which music-biz fame and artistic integrity wove in and out of each other with astounding randomness.

Fables Of The Reconstruction
IRS (1985)
Rivers of suggestion. On Reckoning, Michael Stipe said they were driving him away. R.E.M.'s music has indeed drifted far, but those rivers are still coursing through the group's third album Fables Of The Reconstruction.

Reckoning
IRS (1984)
Reckoning is slightly exhausted, bona fide southern rock and roll.

Murmur (Recommended)
IRS (1983)
R.E.M. named its 7th record Out Of Time, but the most truly timeless recording in the band's catalog is its full-length debut, the elegant and warm Murmur.

Chronic Town (Recommended)
IRS (1982)
Released after R.E.M.'s debut single "Radio Free Europe" and before their breakthrough debut album Murmur, Chronic Town shows the quartet bursting fully formed out of the southern underground.

Concert reviews

August 31, 1999
Chastain Park Amphitheater, Atlanta
Atlanta welcomed home the South's most enduring modern rock and roll band for a three-night stand at the end of August, and it was beautiful.

August 20, 1999
New World Music Theatre, Tinley Park, Ill.
We're R.E.M., and this is what we do," Michael Stipe says, by way of introduction.