SEM
| SEM | |
|---|---|
 REM (2003) |
|
| General information | |
| origin | Athens , Georgia , United States |
| Genre (s) | Alternative rock |
| founding | 1980 |
| resolution | 2011 |
| Website | www.remhq.com |
| Founding members | |
singing |
Michael Stipe |
guitar |
Peter Buck |
bass |
Mike Mills |
Drums |
Bill Berry (until 1997) |
| Live members | |
Drums |
Bill Rieflin † (2003-2011 ) |
REM was an American rock band . With over 85 million albums sold, it is considered one of the most successful alternative rock bands .
history
Foundation and first publications (1978–1981)
REM was founded in 1980 in Athens ( Georgia ), USA , as a college band under the name "Twisted Kites". The beginnings of the band go back to 1978. Peter Buck was working at Wuxtry Records , a record store in Athens near the University of Georgia , where he met their brother Michael Stipe through the sisters Lynda and Cyndy Stipe . They met Mike Mills and Bill Berry through a friend, Peter Bucks . The band's first gig "Twisted Kites" took place on April 5, 1980 at St. Mary's Episcopal Church on Oconee Street in Athens, near the home of Stipe, Buck, Berry and his friend Kathleen O'Brien. The occasion was Kathleen's 21st birthday and the set mainly consisted of cover versions . In her search for a new name, Stipe took a dictionary, selected an entry at random and happened upon REM, the abbreviation for Rapid Eye Movement , a phase of sleep in humans in which the eyes move very quickly under the lids.
In July 1981 the first single Radio Free Europe with the B-side Sitting Still appeared on the record label "Hib-Tone" . This label was founded by a law student who actually wanted to release his own band there, but which had split up shortly before. For "Hib-Tone" REM also recorded the songs for the EP Chronic Town , which was no longer published there. Radio Free Europe was later re-released by the IRS Records label.
First successes (1982–1987)
In May 1982 the band was signed to the IRS Records label. Here the EP Chronic Town was released, of which a good 20,000 copies were sold by the end of the year and which made it into the top 5 of the college radio charts for three months. The following year, the band released their first album, Murmur , which was positively received by the press because of or despite its idiosyncratic style. The album reached number 36 on the Billboard 200 and lasted for 30 weeks. Only a year later, the band released their second album Reckoning , which made it to number 27 on the Billboard charts and lasted more than a year.
Up until this point in time, the band had developed linearly. She gave a lot of live concerts, recorded her first videos, opened five concerts on the indoor tour of the British band The Police in the USA in 1983 and made her first television appearance on the David Letterman show. In the run-up to the 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction , the band had problems for the first time. You felt burned out from the many tours. For the first time the band members became aware of the star status they had achieved. You could see this on the album - it had a darker mood than the two previous records.
In 1986 Lifes Rich Pageant was released , which reached number 21 on the Billboard charts and brought the band the first gold record for 500,000 copies sold. On the album is a piece that has been an integral part of their concerts since 1981: Just a Touch . Before the group released the album Document in September 1987 , Dead Letter Office was released in April of the same year , a compilation of older songs, cover versions and the EP Chronic Town for the first time on CD .
The album Document brought the band for the first time more attention outside the United States; it deals with politics and the personal emotional worlds of the individual band members. More than a million copies of the album have been sold, and it includes two tracks that have been played at almost every concert: The One I Love and It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) .
Superstars (1988-1996)
In addition, the success of the album earned the band a contract with the major Warner label . The first album by Warner in 1988 was called Green , and in the wake of the release the band embarked on their last major world tour for several years. The next one would not follow until 1994 after the release of the album Monster . In between, the band's commercial breakthrough came in 1991 with the release of Out of Time and the single Losing My Religion contained on it . In many ways the record represents a major change in the band. It became the band's first pop record; there were acoustic guitars, mandolins and string arrangements, and guest musicians like rapper KRS-One and singer Kate Pierson from the B-52’s were invited to the studio. Since the band had said goodbye to big live shows for the time being, the record was advertised with numerous appearances in smaller clubs with mainly acoustic instruments that reduced the music to the essentials. Among other things, they played for MTV Unplugged .
The record's great success was surpassed in the following year by the album Automatic for the People . With over 18 million copies sold worldwide, it is the band's most successful album, and hits such as Drive , Everybody Hurts and Man on the Moon , which is a tribute to American comedian Andy Kaufman , come from him. The title of the album came from the motto of a restaurant in Clarke County (Georgia), where the musicians from REM were frequent guests. As a thank you, she mentioned the owner “Weaver D. and his great shop” in the accompanying text.
However, the band seemed dissatisfied with the development. Out of Time and Automatic for the People had been very successful with audiences and critics, but in the opinion of the musicians the original, raw, innocent was lost. With the album Monster , released in 1994, the group therefore wanted to return to their origins: direct, unaffected rock music, in which Buck's distorted guitar was in the foreground. The song Let Me In by Monster is dedicated to Kurt Cobain , who committed suicide in 1994. The entire album is also dedicated to River Phoenix , like Cobain, a friend of Michael Stipe's, who died in 1993 from a drug overdose. Stipe had writer's block because of it for five months. Monster received mostly mediocre reviews and sold very well, but worse than the two previous albums.
In 1996, Warner signed a $ 80 million deal for five albums. The following album, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, was the last with the original line-up and was released in September 1996. It made it to number two on the Billboard 200 in the US, and it made it to number two in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the UK and ten other countries Album to the top of the charts. It's again a predominantly rock album, but quieter songs like How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us and Electrolite ushered in another change of course in the music direction, which should begin with Reveal and Around the Sun.
Personnel changes and further successes (1997-2011)
Originally founded as a quartet, drummer Bill Berry left the band in November 1997. After suffering a cerebral hemorrhage from a ruptured aneurysm during the Monster Tour in 1995, he felt that his health was no longer up to the increasing stress on the tour . The band was about to break up, but then it was decided to continue as a trio. Barrett Martin, formerly Screaming Trees , took place in the recording of the new album Up Berrys, but without becoming an official member of the band. At the end of 1998, Joey Waronker, who previously sat on drums at Beck , took over from Bill Berry; but he did not become part of the band either. The three remaining members then continued to release albums and went on tours, during which they were regularly supported by the musicians Bill Rieflin († 2020) on the 2003 tour as drummer, Ken Stringfellow and Scott McCaughey (each bass, guitar, keyboard).
The band remained successful and was able to book further chart placements; in Great Britain, Imitation of Life (2001), Bad Day (2003) and Leaving New York (2004) achieved further top 10 hits. The 2004 studio album Around the Sun built on the era of Automatic for the People (1992) and Reveal (2001). It deals largely and very critically with the ( Iraq ) policy of US President George W. Bush . While the band was working on their next studio album, their first live album including video DVD was released on October 12, 2007, consisting of recordings from the two concerts in Dublin on February 26 and 27, 2005. On March 28, 2008 her 14th studio album was released with the title Accelerate . The only 34 minute long album is heavier and more rocking than the previous ones. The first single was Supernatural Superserious .
The 15th and final studio album Collapse Into Now was released in Europe on March 7, 2011. The recordings for this took place in Berlin, Nashville and New Orleans. Peaches , Patti Smith and Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder were involved in the recording as guests . Like the previous album, the producer was Garret "Jacknife" Lee .
On September 21, 2011, REM announced the dissolution of the band on their website - without any disputes, as the members assured. A final best-of compilation entitled Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982–2011 was released on November 11, 2011.
style
REM is considered an important representative and pioneer of alternative rock . The group moved between rock and pop music under the influence of country and folk elements. Peter Buck said in an interview as follows:
“Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true. "
“Maintained in a minor key, a medium tempo, a bit puzzling, semi-folk-rock ballads. That's what everyone thinks, and to a certain extent it's true. "
At the beginning of the 1980s, the group was considered an integral part of the indie rock scene, a subgenre with which one wanted to distance oneself from an all too obvious commercialization through the distribution of so-called independent labels . With the establishment of alternative rock in the 1990s and the release of the albums Out Of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), the band turned to the mainstream and the associated pop-oriented song structures. In order to counteract this image, REM consciously developed retrospectively towards rock music after this successful phase.
Band members
Michael Stipe
Peter Buck
Mike Mills
Bill Berry
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Discography
Studio albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
 UK
|
 US
|
|||
| 1983 | Murmur | - | - | - |
UK100  (1 week)UK |
US36 (30 weeks)US |
First published: April 12, 1983
No. 197 in the Rolling Stone 500 in the UK only in the charts in 1994. Sales: + 600,000 |
| 1984 | Reckoning | - | - | - |
UK91 (2 weeks) UK |
US27 (53 weeks)US |
First published: April 9, 1984
Sales: + 500,000 |
| 1985 | Fables of the Reconstruction | - | - | - |
UK35 (5 weeks) UK |
US28 (42 weeks)US |
First published: June 10, 1985
Sales: + 500,000 |
| 1986 | Lifes Rich Pageant | - | - | - |
UK43  (4 weeks)UK |
US21st (32 weeks)US |
First published: July 28, 1986
Sales: + 660,000 |
| 1987 | Document | - | - | - |
UK28 (5 weeks)UK |
US10  (33 weeks)US |
First published: September 1, 1987
# 470 of the Rolling Stone 500. Sales: + 1,200,000 |
| 1988 | Green | - | - | - |
UK27 (27 weeks)UK |
US12 × 2
(40 weeks)US |
First published: November 8, 1988
Sales: + 2,557,500 |
| 1991 | Out of time |
DE2 × 5
(67 weeks)DE |
AT1 (32 weeks) AT |
CH3 × 2
(50 weeks)CH |
UK1 × 5
(212 weeks)UK |
US1 × 4
(109 weeks)US |
|
| 1992 | Automatic for the people |
DE2 × 5
(63 weeks)DE |
AT3 × 2
(37 weeks)AT |
CH3 × 2
(37 weeks)CH |
UK1 × 7
(245 weeks)UK |
US2 × 4
(76 weeks)US |
First published: October 5, 1992
# 247 in the Rolling Stone 500. Sales: + 9,435,000 |
| 1994 | monster |
DE2 (44 weeks)DE |
AT1 (22 weeks)AT |
CH1 (31 weeks)CH |
UK1 × 3
(64 weeks)UK |
US1 × 4
(54 weeks)US |
First published: September 27, 1994
Sales: + 6,685,000 |
| 1996 | New Adventures in Hi-Fi |
DE1 (25 weeks)DE |
AT1 (16 weeks)AT |
CH1 (13 weeks)CH |
UK1 (22 weeks)UK |
US2 (22 weeks)US |
First published: September 10, 1996
Sales: + 2,250,000 |
| 1998 | Up |
DE1 (22 weeks) DE |
AT1 (16 weeks)AT |
CH7th (10 weeks)CH |
UK2 (32 weeks)UK |
US3 (16 weeks)US |
First published: October 27, 1998
Sales: + 1,542,500 |
| 2001 | Reveal |
DE1 (21 weeks)DE |
AT1 (17 weeks)AT |
CH1 (20 weeks)CH |
UK1 (16 weeks)UK |
US6th (10 weeks)US |
First published: May 15, 2001
Sales: + 1,592,500 |
| 2004 | Around the sun |
DE1 (37 weeks)DE |
AT1 (22 weeks)AT |
CH1 (24 weeks)CH |
UK1 (13 weeks)UK |
US13 (7 weeks) US |
First published: October 5, 2004
Sales: + 1,035,000 |
| 2008 | Accelerate |
DE2 (23 weeks)DE |
AT2 (15 weeks)AT |
CH1 (22 weeks)CH |
UK1 (11 weeks)UK |
US2 (18 weeks) US |
First published: April 1, 2008
Sales: + 342,500 |
| 2011 | Collapse into Now |
DE1 (13 weeks) DE |
AT2 (10 weeks) AT |
CH1 (12 weeks) CH |
UK5 (7 weeks)UK |
US5 (7 weeks) US |
First published: March 8, 2011
Sales: + 90,000 |
Awards
- REM has won several Grammys and MTV Music Awards .
- Your video for the piece Bad Day was awarded a Comet for the best video.
- The band was inducted into the Georgia Music Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in September 2006 .
- The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2007 .
- The Rolling Stone listed REM as 97th of the 100 greatest musicians and 85th of the 100 best songwriters of all time .
literature
- Tony Fletcher: Established - The Story of REM Bosworth Music Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86543-098-4
- Peter Hogan: REM in their own words . Palmyra, Heidelberg 1998, ISBN 3-930378-17-5 .
- Thomas Pöll & Kirsten Borchardt: REM The Rolling Stone Files . Hannibal Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-85445-211-X .
- David Buckley: REM Facts and Fiction - A Critical Biography . Hannibal Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-85445-230-6 .
- Craig Rosen: REM - Inside Out. The story of their songs. Buhmann & Haeseler, Schlüchtern 2005, ISBN 3-927638-23-4 .
- Stefan Nink: REM - America dreams. The unusual rise of the most important rock band in the United States . Piper Schott Verlag Munich 1995, ISBN 3-492-18410-3 (Piper), ISBN 3-7957-8410-7 (Schott)
Web links
- Official website (English)
- REM on MusicBrainz (English)
- REM at Discogs (English)
- REM at laut.de
- Further links on REM in the Open Music Project - MusicMoz (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ remhq.com: REM Call it a day. Retrieved September 8, 2016 .
- ↑ remhq.com: REM Part lies, part heart, part truth, part garbage, 1982 - 2011. Retrieved September 8, 2016 .
- ↑ David Buckley: REM - Facts and Fictions - A Critical Biography , p. 39.
- ↑ RollingStone: Bill Rieflin, Drummer for King Crimson, REM, Ministry, Dead at 59.Retrieved March 25, 2020 (English).
- ↑ excite.de: REM New album is called 'Collapse Into Now'. Retrieved September 8, 2016 .
- ↑ Rock band REM announce separation; World online ; Retrieved September 21, 2011.
- ↑ laut.de: REM: Pre-Listening in Berlin. Retrieved May 27, 2016 .
- ↑ classicrock.net: New box set from the pioneers of alternative rock. Retrieved May 27, 2016 .
- ↑ tape.tv: REM (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 27, 2016 ; accessed on May 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Halbersberg, Elianna. "Peter Buck of REM" East Coast Rocker. November 30, 1988.
- ↑ faz.net: REM The rocker who connects epochs. Retrieved May 27, 2016 .
- ↑ spiegel.de: Farewell to REM: The dinosaurs are tired. Retrieved May 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
- ^ The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .
- ↑ David Ciminelli: REM Calls 'Collapse Into Now' Their Best Album in 20 Years. In: Billboard. February 9, 2011, accessed January 27, 2017 .
- ↑ 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Rolling Stone , December 2, 2010, accessed August 7, 2017 .
- ↑ The 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. Rolling Stone , August 2015, accessed August 7, 2017 .
Studio albums: Murmur (1983) | Reckoning (1984) | Fables of the Reconstruction (1985) | Lifes Rich Pageant (1986) | Document (1987) | Green (1988) | Out of Time (1991) | Automatic for the People (1992) | Monster (1994) | New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996) | Up (1998) | Reveal (2001) | Around the Sun (2004) | Accelerate (2008) | Collapse into Now (2011)
Singles (selection): The One I Love (1987) | It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (1987) | Stand (1989) | Losing My Religion (1991) | Shiny Happy People (1991) | Man on the Moon (1992) | Bang and Blame (1994) | Imitation of Life (2001)