When Was R.E.M. at Their Peak?

I was always jealous of the older guys who could remember when particular Beach Boys songs came out.

But when REM came along, I had that pleasure.

The band emerged as college radio darlings just as I started, releasing the Chronic Town EP and their five LP’s on the I.R.S. label, all while I was a student. The band signed with Warner Brothers as I entered the working world. 

For those new to this, we’re looking at retrospective in a unique way – searching for the artist’s peak. Not the most popular song, something harder. Something we might think of as the Platonic peak. A song that conveys the essence of their good.

Won’t reasonable people disagree? Let’s hope so. 

To say that REM was unique would be an understatement if that were logically possible. A true all-for-one-one-for-all operation where every band member received equal credit for every song. Contemporaries U2 would be similar, but Bono and the Edge always came across as kind of carrying . . . who were those other guys again?

REM was the truest band. Of the three players, Mike Mills (bass & keys), Bill Berry (drums) and Peter Buck (guitar), the guitarist was by far the weakest. But Buck assumed the role of task master, keeping the band in focus. The trio would work out full songs with no sense of lyrical content. And then Michael Stipe would do his thing.

Nobody did it that way.

But it worked.

When they played, they essentially all soloed behind Stipe’s lyrics. Their songs contained few true solos. Yet, somehow, it rocked. Buck’s arpeggiated guitar style left room for Mills’s melodic bass lines and Berry’s drums seemed to have melody as well.

Each of REM’s first nine releases sold more than the previous one. A slow growth approach that helped the band keep its sense of purpose better than any other hugely successful band that I can think of. And the decline phase, starting with the brilliant Monster, would be a fabulous career for most bands in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

They obviously didn’t peak early, though “Gardening at Night” from their initial EP and “Radio Free Europe” from their first LP Murmur are contenders. Album 2, Reckoning, contained their first true hit, “South Central Rain,” the fabulous pop song “Don’t Go Back to Rockville,” and the amazing “Talk About the Passion.”

I couldn’t wait for the next album, until it came out. Fables of the Reconstruction disappointed me. “Driver 8” had something. But I never would have guessed it would become immortalized on Sports Center by Neil Everett. Had REM peaked?

Life’s Rich Pageant answered that question. The opening trio of songs – “Begin the Begin,” “Fall on Me,” and “Cuyahoga,” plus the closing number “Superman” with Mills on lead vocal – took the band to a higher plain. They would write better songs and ones that would be more popular. But they would never again surprise us so with the depth of their talent.  

“Cuyahoga” mainlined a sense of pure golden memory that any listener could create for themselves.

This is where we walked
This is where we swam
Take a picture here
Take a souvenir

Field of Dreams stuff.

REM booked a show on the LRP tour at the Greek Theater on the UC Berkeley campus. It was raining, and I was there. We got pizza at the Berkeley coop, thinking we could order whatever, only to learn “there’s only one flavor, man.” But it was good.

What wasn’t was the rain. Stipe got angry, sniping at the reluctant crowd, “do you want me to be electrocuted?” Mills had to explain that they were as pissed as we were that they couldn’t play. They’d reschedule the show. It would be at the Oakland Coliseum. Not the same. But still. Did we hear peak REM?

Next came the fabulous Document. It included REM’s first big hit, “The One That I Love.” But every song, including the cover of Wire’s “Strange” was off the charts. A true album for the ages. But, the closing song on side 1, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).”

No words. And for me, that’s saying something.

During this time, I’d drive around a lot at night, a relationship teetering on the edge. And I’d listen to Document from start to finish over-and-over again. Was I listening to peak REM? It was hard to believe anything could top it. Well, “Losing My Religion,” “Shining Happy People,” “Everybody Hurts,” “Man on the Moon,” and at least a half dozen more through the 90s have to be contenders, right?

Then, in the late 90s, I was at my brother-in-law’s wedding.

My wife and I were dancing. The DJ spun “It’s the End of the World,” and we dissolved into it.

I knew then, I was listening to peak REM.