It's record store day and it would appear that the 3 LP Singles released by R.E.M. are about as rare as an entry on this site.
I will not write some "That's It I'm Out of Here" post but I have to say that over the years of following R.E.M., collecting their bootlegs and listening to their music there is not much that I feel I can "Grow", in terms of writing about their music. I have followed them, applauded, criticised them when I felt like it but the comments at some point just become the same revolving themes over and over again.
I had begun this site with trying to bring an element of discussion back into the forefront. Speaking frankly as a fan with my own obsessions, it was as much about me as the band and that fateful connection to their music and my life took me along many different turns. I wrote about plans and ideas and some of them never came to fruition. Quite honestly, it's much more difficult when you are doing something out of passion rather than getting a paycheck to do it.
I love writing because I honestly believe that I suck at it. I read stuff by Mr. Marrone, my cohort for a bit and outside of his weak attempts of trying to put me down find him a better writer. I speak at about a 35 words per minute rate, figure my vocabulary was derived from a Cliffs Notes dictionary and would probably drive any editor up a wall.
I write because I try to figure it all out. When it appears on the screen I can read it and think about it again, maybe make a couple backspaces or erase it altogether.
I write because being a fan of a band like R.E.M. is not a certification that you have to renew every year. The music that drove me to this place had a passion and I wrote to try to figure that all out. It was a premise to figure out why I liked or disliked the music.
I have realized over the past couple years that my tastes have shifted, my criticisms have become multiplied and it's stopped being fun. After the R.E.M. album was released and all the fanfare around it subsided, I wanted to continue to write and while my other site is miniscule compared to this one, it's brought a level of joy that this one has not. Writing about something that you might not be all that familiar with brings it's own challenges but it's challenges that I want to take.
This site is not going anywhere. It will not be deleted. It will still be here and you will be able to read any posts that you deem important.
For those that want to follow me, I would encourage you to go to The Zimmermann Note (http://thezimmermannnote.com). If you follow me on Twitter you can still follow me there.
Thanks to the few of you that have read this site and I hope that it has encouraged you to think about your own passions for R.E.M., good and bad.
Comments
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
This may or may not soothe you, but Joan Dideon's 1979 The White Album is never far from my memory, and your comments brought it to consciousness again.
Back in the day when I taught writing I always started with Joan Dideon's comment in her titular essay (an essay about attending a Doors' recording session, by the way): "We tell ourselves stories in order to live. . . . We interpret what we see, select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience."
If you've drained that need for order and understanding, then go on to other things. Make yourself happy.
As for our once favorite band: My position on today’s REM is well known, so I thankfully won’t regurgitate it here.
But despite my rapidly advancing crawl into senility, I do like, indeed love, a number of great new bands that have emerged in the 2000s not to mention some old reliable stalwarts more than I do REM.
A short story: The other day, I was in the supermarket checkout line. I just happened to have on a Springsteen shirt with the rap that Bruce gives after he introduces the band written on the front of my shirt. Anyway, the young woman checking me out asked about it. So I told her. She looked at me inquisitively and said she had never heard of Bruce or The E Street Band. Then she asked me again so she could write down the name, saying she always liked listening to new music and would check it out.
Despite some days feeling old and other days feeling older, I feel pretty good about where I am right now.
My simple advice: don't ever give up writing, whether its subject is REM or not, keep fighting the good fright, keep imposing order on the chaos.
goodbye
life does change and peoples taste in music change along with it. I use to enjoy this site very much until you went on your R.E.M bashing campaign. I like many of the new altenrative bands that are out there. I still love R.E.M and think their latest album is fantastic! I will not miss your negativity about the band. Good luck to you and whatever you need to do.
life's changes
Well, Eric, I will miss your comments. I haven't been on this train for very long (three years in fact) but there have been many ups and downs. My life has been thoroughly changed by this "hobby". The baby I am having in 4 months would not exist without it, for example. Stay in touch!
Martine
Please Stick Around
So, can understand your not wanting to update very frequently, but as a fellow disillusioned fan, gotta say, we need someone out here representing, so, for our sake, please keep posting, if only infrequently, and if only when news warrants. We need some kind of antidote to the blind cheerleading over at Murmurs.
Like you, I seem to have lost touch with everything I once loved about this band, but that's because the band seems to have lost touch with what once made them great. Accelerate gave me some hope that they'd find it again, but Collapse Into Now seems to have belied that wish. I can barely even manage to listen to it, having gotten through a grand total of maybe five spins. Maybe.
But, it's still good to hear from someone else out there who doesn't just accept how lazy the band has become, beginning with Stipe's flat, uninspired lyrics and seeming inability to write vocal melodies anymore, but extending well beyond that: to Buck and Mills leaning hard on earlier musical templates and ideas, to the lack of touring, to putting out an RSD 7-inch with nothing but pointless and seemingly randomly chosen live tracks as b-sides, to the terrible, terrible album artwork. (Seriously, why hire Anton Corbijn to shoot photos if your album cover is nothing more than a cheesy graphical treatment? Compare the band's recent artwork to the inspired early work, across singles, albums, shirt and beyond.) I could go on.
I mean, hell, if they can't be bothered to pay attention to this stuff, why should we? I get that they don't want to do a massive world tour, but how hard would it be to play a small (say, 10-city) tour playing interesting venues? You know, do a couple nights at a large theater in NY, a unique outdoor space in Athens, a small club in Minneapolis, a medium size theater in Chicago, a surprise show in LA, just something different. Don't create a whole light and stage show. Just play. Because it's fun. Because it lights a fire under your ass.
In any event, I've gone on too long. But, this is all to say, we definitely need your voice out here talking about this stuff. Or, if it isn't about how bad things have gotten, maybe make it about how great they once were. No other band in the past three decades has had the kind of run they had from the Hib-Tone single through Automatic. No one else even came close. Too bad that was two-decades ago now....
re: Please Stick Around
To answer you, I want to say one of the reasons that I am not sticking around because I find no fruition in arguing with individuals on a messageboard. R.E.M.'s relevance in the music history will not be written from the music over the past 10 years or so and the people on that site will have very little influence in that regard.
I do believe there is a story to be told. Some have done an admirable job in doing so already. I would point to Matthew Perpetua's Pop Songs site as a starting point.
I would point to Paul Butchart who I believe has a story to be told regarding the early R.E.M. days and I believe also that when all is said and done and R.E.M. have packed their bags that there will be a story to tell about them.
I read a really good article today regarding the idea of music on the internet.
http://www.slate.com/id/2291532/
Something that the article fails to mention but Jim DeRogatis mentioned is that there is going to be a need for curators for music, in this case, R.E.M. Authors like Tony Fletcher have done wonders writing books talking about this but today we have access to hundreds of bootleg R.E.M. concerts and demos and there will be a desire to start sorting through them and writing about them.
But you really cannot half-ass something and I figured any reminiscing on those old times would carry a tinge of disappointment now.
I'll miss your comments and
I'll miss your comments and evaluation - I've disagreed with maybe a third to half of it, but you've criticised the band from a position of knowledge and truly giving a shit. I would urge you to keep writing about the group, because I think there's a great deal still to say about this great band and their great, messy catalogue. I'd still love to read some more of your bootleg reviews, for one thing... I guess I'd say write about what you feel is worth writing about, and if you're spent for now, come back to the Remring project when you're able to come back to this music.
Ultimately I think it feels appropriate to at the very least kick this down a notch, because to me it feels as though REM itself is winding down - or at least has become a part-time concern, curating the legacy and very occasionally coming together in the here and now.
Dave LHC
thequietroom.wordpress.com
one more post please
the band is over.