It's the end of the world as we know it...

[Stephen]

http://remhq.com/news_story.php?id=1446

REM calls it quits after 30+ years. I can't say it's hugely surprising although I finally thought they had their groove back the last few years after loosing it for awhile when Bill Berry left.

[smudge]

....and despite loving this band, I feel fine. I'm really glad they've made a decision and let everyone know. That's decent of them.

[vespapod]

[This is sockii under vespa's account as suddenly I can no longer log-in to mine. Argh.]

Can't say it's a big surprise or trauma to me. TBH I haven't been a major follower for a while although I enjoyed much of their 80s-to-early-90s stuff. Sometimes it's best to know when to say goodbye.

[giovanni]

Sockii, get in touch with Eugenio about your account, he will surely sort it out.

Well, I loved Rem since the early days, and until Out Of Time they were superclass...then they changed a bit and didn't followed them that much...but I keep on listening to their first few albums and their creativity and art is still touching me.

[vespapod]

[quote="giovanni"]Sockii, get in touch with Eugenio about your account, he will surely sort it out.[/quote]

Did that; waiting to hear anything in response...

[DirtyMartini]

REM are my desert island band, so I can't quite identify what I feel. Unsurprised? Yes. A little sad? Yes, but not in an active way, if that makes sense. Melancholy maybe? Sure, perhaps.

I only ever got to see them play live once: I was always either too young, too selling-plasma-level-poor, too in-the-wrong-town, too dealing-with(-surgery, -funerals); up through the new millennia in particular it had become a bad joke how I could never get to see them live. So I'm disappointed that I won't get to see them play again, and I selfishly would love a farewell tour, and being greedy, I'd also love to see them say goodbye as a foursome.

But they've built a body of musical poetry for almost as long as I've been around, and many songs or albums that at one time didn't thrill me (including Automatic for the People, which on first listen disappointed my teenage self), I've often grown to love. They occasionally failed miserably, but I appreciate that they took chances and that Stipe could conjure Whitman, Ginsberg, and Oliver Wendell Holmes/The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table together in a jangly pop song. To this day I still discover new things in songs I've heard a million times. So I can't complain. I guess what I'm feeling is grateful.

[zilboy]

Never got 'em. Coupla' catchy tunes, due mostly to Bill Berry's driving beats. But, just never got 'em. Still, I'll never forget Michael Stipe singing Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" during a soundcheck. Props for that.

[policefan]

Sweetness Follows

[63falcon]

I also hadn't been an avid listener for years-and NOTHING they had done 'moved my feet' the way [u]Murmur[/u] did, all those years ago. I STILL love Radio Free Europe/Moral Kiosk/Catapult/Talk About the Passion. Wow, Frashman Year all over again. They were still on the southeastern US college touring circuit that I guess Ian had set up for his bands, because REM alon w/ English Beat and a couple of others were sliding throug Blacksburg every so often to play Wednesday New Wave Night at After Sundown (the town dance club at the time). Very cool to listen and dance w/ those fellows live.
I actually did really like Automatic for the People, a very different sound, but those songs were summing up some things going on w/ folks in my life right then, so anyway.
Maybe they will one day go on their own Tourzilla-with The Police opening at some venues!!!!! Can only hope
Enjoy y'all's retirement guys, and Thanks!

[smudge]

I agree with Kellie's view that there is always something new to discover in their best work. I listened to Document last night: 24 years and countless listens since I first heard it and I'm still finding interesting nooks and crannies in that album. I've got a not-yet-decanted-from-packaging Life's Rich Pageant 25th Anniversary box set sitting on my desk. It arrived out of the blue from a dear friend a few weeks back. It's awaiting several hours of concentrated listening. It's not something I want to dip in to casually between chores. That's one of the things I love most about this band: their work is (not always, but usually) worth investing time in.

[Divemistress of the Dark]

Not to rub salt in Kellie's wound, but they were one of the best live bands in the world. First time I saw them was 1987 on the 'Document' tour (yeah, yeah, I know they were relative oldsters by then)...the world took on a new shape. By 2004 I was somewhat un-enamored but went to a local benefit they played for a political organization in town - they were utterly fantastic. Got to meet them briefly and *they* thanked *me* for involvement in said political group. Was sort of hard to take in.

I'll agree it would have been great had they done one last tour. Had a bad feeling about things when they didn't tour behind 'Accelerate', which I actually thought was pretty good as well.

For the record, half the band has been playing out w/Robyn Hitchcock for a while now as the Venus 3 - don't miss 'em if you get a chance.

Hard to believe they lasted so long, actually - I'm an old lady typing this and I well remember going to see them w/my highschool sweetheart.

[TheEqualizer]

I saw them only once - Monster tour. Very disappointed. It wasn't even a date where Radiohead was the opener. By that time, REM was a different band than the one I loved in high school. After Life's Rich Pageant, it was all downhill for them to me. I didn't hate Document, but didn't love it. Started to actively dislike them by Green. By Out of Time, I clear did not like them at all. By Automatic for the People, I just did not care if they existed.

YET, I still saw them on their Monster tour. Why? Cuz I really really really liked their albums prior to Document.

Why am I saying this? Not sure.

ETA - Clarification: I did not start to dislike REM because they were bad. Just that they became a different band from the one I loved. I know bands need to grow, but I guess they grew into a different direction than I was going in my life at that time.

[63falcon]

[quote=For the record, half the band has been playing out w/Robyn Hitchcock for a while now as the Venus 3 - don't miss 'em if you get a chance.

Hard to believe they lasted so long, actually - I'm an old lady typing this and I well remember going to see them w/my highschool sweetheart.[/quote]
High school sweetheart! Arghhhhhhh....! I don't FEEL like an old lady, but I guess will have to go w/ decrepit label, since, like I said, freshman year at VPI/VA Tech (can't get used to calling it that), Radio Free Europe was out, Murmur was YET to be released.......Automatic really was different, not danceable, obscurely reflective-it suited what was going on w/ friends and family at that time. But no dancing, that's for sure!
It seems if bands don't evolve, there is criticism about staleness (like a lot of the Sting comments-mine included), but then when a sound does change, that's also not well received. The Police probaly in the long did the kindest thing. Quit on top and when all hope is gone, come back for limited time only and give them what they want. Smart!
Really used to enjoy Robyn Hitchcock, haven't heard much of what he is doing lately, will have to check it out.

[shyvixen]

REM played Red Rocks a few years back and I wasn't able to go. I'm really regretting that now. Their music was the soundtrack to my life from about 1985 to 1995.

[DirtyMartini]

Not to rub salt in Kellie's wound, but they were one of the best live bands in the world.

I KNOW! Sadly video recordings, though evidential, just aren't the same.

What I definitely get, though, are preferences of certain eras/albums, dislikes of others. Reveal I still abhor, Monster I like on occasion but see as more of a reflection of its time. New Adventures in Hi-Fi, however, though so very different from the reasons that I love REM, really caught me a year or so after it came out. "Undertow" and "Leave" are a couple of my favorite songs ever, despite being so divorced from amazing classics like "Finest Worksong" as to not even be comparable.

I think EQ's nailed it: "ETA - Clarification: I did not start to dislike REM because they were bad. Just that they became a different band from the one I loved. I know bands need to grow, but I guess they grew into a different direction than I was going in my life at that time." New Adventures, for me, came at just the right time, despite being entirely the wrong sound for my comfortable memory. Up wasn't quite right for me when it came out, but I found a place for it later. Reveal, not so much.