R.E.M. Reunites For One Night… And One Night Only

And I Feel Fine

I happened to find out that one of my favorite bands, R.E.M., reunited for their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and actually performed “Losing my Religion” as part of the ceremony. I had never actually heard of the Songwriters Hall of Fame before, but it’s apparently a real thing, so it was cool to see, but I also think if you are honored for writing some great songs, and are physically able to perform them, actually playing one at the ceremony should be expected. However, it was good to read about R.E.M. again, since they officially disbanded in 2011. And unofficially, even I have to admit they had not been relevant for awhile before that.

Still, bands reunite all the time and go on tour. And these days, they can charge a crapload of money and people will pay it. Bands that had probably had a hard time headlining on their own when they were actually big often team up with similar bands and play nostalgia shows for people in their forties who want to feel young again for a night (And I’m not knocking it. I was kind of interested in seeing the Gin Blossoms, Toad the Wet Sprocket and Vertical Horizon tear it up at the Chevalier in August, but I’ll be on vacation, sitting on a beach drinking, like a man in his forties should be.)

R.E.M. doesn’t fit into that category, though. They had 8 official UK number one albums, and “Out of Time” was nominated for 7 Grammy awards, and was number one in the U.S. “Losing my Religion” was number four on the Billboard charts, and not that it’s all about money, but they were once the highest paid band in the world, which is probably the real reason they don’t need to do a reunion tour. In fact, that giant recording contract may have been their creative downfall. In 1996, they signed with Warner Brothers for $80 million for five albums, including a $10 million signing bonus, a $20 million advance, 24% royalties, and a $10 million advance for each of their next six albums, but a year later, drummer Bill Berry left the band after suffering a ruptured brain aneurysm while on tour. The band had always said that they would not go on without the original quartet, but Berry did not want to be responsible for the break-up, and also they were contractually obligated, so while they had a few blips in the ensuing years, the overall quality of the albums, in my opinion, dropped. And I bet if you looked at the sales numbers, you would discover that it wasn’t just my opinion.

So, why this sudden interest in a band that I started listening to in 1990 and pretty much stopped listening to in 2008? Was it because they played one song together at a small-change Hall of Fame Ceremony? Is it because a friend of mine once told me that if R.E.M. ever announced a reunion tour that he would go, no matter where or what cost, and I never forgot that? Is it just because I don’t have much else going on, musically-speaking, thanks to Spotify just playing whatever old crap I tell it to?

No, I think there’s something else to it. People like to say that it’s harder to make friends as adults, and I feel like it’s kind of the same with bands. When I was young and impressionable, music spoke to me, man. Neil Peart’s Rush lyrics were so deep that I just had to listen to the songs over and over to understand their scope, even the weird futuristic, spacey ones. I think I listened to early Green Day because I wanted to be having as much fun as they seemed to be having. And at fourteen, I didn’t know much about love, or sex, or the affects of suicide, but Michael Stipe was going to help me learn. I mean, that took awhile. I was in my late-20’s when I finally learned that the phrase “losing my religion” is a Southern expression which basically means you have exhausted all possibilities and are at the end of your rope. When I first heard it as a pimple-faced teenager, I just thought it sounded cool.

It might not just be that I am not young and impressionable anymore, though. It is also the ease with which people can obtain music, and the fact that I don’t listen to terrestrial radio anymore, which used to drill songs into my pea brain until I basically had to buy the album. Recently, a friend of mine recommended the new Pearl Jam album, so I looked it up on Spotify, listened to it once, enjoyed it, and have not really felt compelled to queue it up again. If it was a new R.E.M. or Rush album, would I have listened to it again and again until I forced myself to enjoy it? Possibly, but at 48, I’m just not ready to commit to a new fandom. Sorry, Pearl Jam.

But R.E.M. was there for many of the critical eras of my life. In 1991, as a young high schooler, “Out of Time” was released, and I bought the tape with my own money. I used to play it in our car tape player while going places with my parents, and I tried to talk over the part in “Country Feedback” when Stipe says, “Fuck all,” because I didn’t think they would approve. In a weird way, I think I was almost protecting them. In 1992, “Automatic for the People” came out, and not only was the tape itself a yellowish hue, but it also covered some deeper themes, and I was young and thought I knew everything, and thought, “This guy is talking to me.”

A few years later, while staying over for Orientation weekend as a college freshman, I saw on the dorm TV the video for the new R.E.M. song, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”, for the first time, and I was blown away. After all that mandolin stuff, these guys could still play hard. It’s still one of my favorite songs, and as strange as it sounds, as I was entering college and the unknown, that song somehow helped me through it.

There were other instances, as well. 2008’s “Accelerate” was actually a pleasant surprise as an album, and one that Stipe himself points to as a creative highpoint. Seeing them live was always fun because, as a band that had been together since they were also very young and had played every kind ofvenue, they were just as fun to watch on MTV’s Unplugged as they were in a 15,000 seat arena.

Still, not all friendships stand the test of time, and as I got older this was one I was starting to move away from. If they were big now, Stipe’s eyeliner and fluid sexuality would be much more acceptable, but at the time, it was hard not to write him off as just being pretentious. The various ndrummers they brought in to fill Berry’s shoes were fine, but something was clearly missing. there And when Mike Mills started wearing Elvis suits on stage, well, that was weird for any era.

I have often said that social media has made high school reunions somewhat irrelevant, and it may be the same with streaming music. If R.E.M. did tour again, and if I had the money, I would buy a ticket. But if they don’t, seeing the clip of them sharing the stage was nice. And thanks to Spotify, when it comes to this old friend, I'll never totally lose my religion, and that is enough for me.

(Maybe that play on words was a bit much, but it was better than the play on “It’s the End of the world as we Know It (and I Feel Fine)” one I was working on.)