Artist bio

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.

Albums by this artist

Reveal (2001)

Up (1998)

New Adventures In Hi-Fi (1996)

Monster (1994)

Automatic For The People (Recommended) (1992)

Out Of Time (1991)

Fables Of The Reconstruction (1985)

Reckoning (1984)

Murmur (Recommended) (1983)

Chronic Town (Recommended) (1982)

Concerts

August 31, 1999
Chastain Park Amphitheater, Atlanta

August 20, 1999
New World Music Theatre, Tinley Park, Ill.

R.E.M.

Fables Of The Reconstruction

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» TROY CARPENTER | CO-DIRECTOR

R.E.M. Fables Of The Reconstruction IRS, 1985 RiYL: Camper Van Beethoven, Pavement, Neil Young

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. The group takes a large step forward again with Fables, moving away from the stately elegance of its debut and the restrained southern rock of its second album to a new territory altogether, a moody, richly textured (dare i say it?) folk album.

The record was produced during a rainy winter in London with legendary producer Joe Boyd, and the band famously came close to breaking up during the strained sessions. The resulting sound isn't that of a band dissolving, but it is assuredly gloomy, and does sound like it's coming from a place far from home.

The striking "Feeling Gravitys Pull" opens Fables, and the waters of suggestion are running high. The song's baroque undertones and harmonics-and-cellos crescendo are very far away from the modest country pop R.E.M. last left us with. The song seems to be about mortality, but random lyric flashes like "I fell asleep and read just about every paragraph" or "It's a Man Ray kind of sky" don't explain things as much as create more questions. The moment when Stipe and Mike Mills' voices intertwine at the song's apex marks it as one of the group's finest efforts.

Most of Fables is exactly that -- fables, anecdotes, small tales or snapshots celebrating dark southern mythology. Stipe introduces us to characters like the hollowly ambitious "Old Man Kensey," the backwoods nutter "Wendell Gee" (who we meet in his own dream) and the terminal eccentric who's gonna write a book called "Life And How To Live It." "Driver 8" is a train song: using a classic folk-rock motif, the group evokes the exhausted mental state of a conductor on the Southern Crescent line, keeping the coals stoked and contemplating the endless passing landscape.

Stipe's lyrics, in keeping with tradition, rarely make literal sense, but often possess another sort of angular logic: in the same way a certain guitar tone or banjo twang might summon images of a certain place or time, Stipe illustrates his settings verbally, and with his rural melodies. "Green Grow The Rushes," like "Talk About The Passion" before it, is one of the earliest glimpses of R.E.M. stepping into political territory, as it loosely laments the plight of immigrant Mexican workers (aka "gringos" -- "green grows," get it?) hired in the U.S. for bare wages. "Good Advices," on the other hand, is like a sampler of southern-fried aphorisms: "When you greet a stranger / look at her shoes...keep your hat on your head / home is a long way away."

Occasionally, the band lashes out with a rocker, such as the flailing "Auctioneer (Another Engine)" or the quirky single "Can't Get There From Here." In the latter, campy horns, stuttering guitar riffs and Stipe's ridiculous homegrown lyrics create the first of R.E.M.'s cheese-pop oddities (latter additions to this category include "Pop Song '89" and "Shiny Happy People"), and the song stands out somewhat garishly from its mostly murky surroundings.

As somber as Fables is, however, it is a solidly constructed album with more than its fair share of great tunes. Bill Berry was to tell Rolling Stone a mere two years later that the album "sucked," but coming out when it did, Fables was as essential as R.E.M.'s first two albums in creating an alternative to the mainstream airwaves and establishing a benchmark of quality for the American underground.

TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.