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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rem_1984_resized.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:350:"We are R.E.M. and this is what we do."[[note]]L-R: Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck, Bill Berry.[[/note]]]]
3
4->''I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract'' \
5''Explain the change, the difference between'' \
6''What you want and what you need'' \
7''There's the key: your adventure for today'' \
8''What do you do between'' \
9''The horns of the day?'' \
10''I, I believe''
11-->-- "I Believe"
12
13[floatboxright:Influences:
14+ Music/MarcBolan, Music/MottTheHoople, Music/TheByrds, Music/BigStar, The Soft Boys, Music/TheBeatles, Music/PaulMcCartney, Music/{{Yes}}, Music/TheVelvetUnderground, Music/LouReed, Music/LeonardCohen, Music/IggyPop, Music/DavidBowie, Music/{{Aerosmith}}, Echobelly, Music/{{Kraftwerk}}, Music/NeilYoung, Music/PattiSmith, Music/TheBeachBoys, Music/TenThousandManiacs, Music/{{Television}}, Music/{{Radiohead}}, Music/{{Nirvana}}...
15Influenced:
16+ Music/{{Nirvana}}, Music/{{Pavement}}, Music/{{Radiohead}}, Music/{{Coldplay}}, Music/PearlJam, Local H, Music/TheSmiths, Music/JohnnyMarr, Music/TenThousandManiacs, Music/SonicYouth, Music/ButtholeSurfers, Music/TheReplacements, Music/{{Live}}, Pwr Bttm, The Dream Syndicate, Music/TheDecemberists...
17]
18
19R.E.M. was an AlternativeRock band from Athens, [[UsefulNotes/GeorgiaUSA Georgia]], the same city from where Music/TheB52s came a few years before. It was formed in 1980 when University of Georgia student Michael Stipe (vocals) met Peter Buck (guitar), who worked at a record store. They discovered that they shared a similar taste for "art-punk" acts such as Music/{{Television}}, Music/PattiSmith, and Music/TheVelvetUnderground. This led them to form a band with two other U of G students, Mike Mills (bass) and Bill Berry (drums), who had been playing in bands together since high school.
20
21Under the name R.E.M., the band recorded the first single ever released on Hib-Tone Records, [[note]]There were four in total -- R.E.M. had nothing to do with the other three[[/note]] "Radio Free Europe" b/w "Sitting Still". The combination of punk attitude and folk-rock guitars influenced by PowerPop (especially Music/BigStar) in "Radio Free Europe" pretty much [[TropeMaker invented]] AlternativeRock as a distinctly identifiable entity and movement (not to mention a specific subgenre of it named JanglePop) and led to them being picked up by Creator/IRSRecords.
22
23The band initially played with a "murky" style: their early albums were produced so that no one instrument was more or less prominent than any of the others -- but starting with ''Lifes Rich Pageant'', Michael Stipe began enunciating his once-mumbled lyrics more clearly, and Peter Buck's guitar parts became more prominent. Shortly after this, the band, who had previously seen high levels of critical acclaim and a lot of popularity on college radio but never really had a hit, became hugely popular. ''Music/{{Document}}'', the band's last studio album with I.R.S., contained the major hits "The One I Love" and the well-tossed word salad "It's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt (And I Feel Fine)". As the 1980s closed and R.E.M. found themselves increasingly dissatisfied with their music's dismal international distribution, the band had abandoned their old home of I.R.S. Records for the new, more mainstream label of Creator/WarnerBrosRecords under the promise of [[AuteurLicense total creative freedom]], with the first release on the label being 1988's ''Music/{{Green}}''. Bolstered by the hit singles "Stand" and "Orange Crush", as well as a ''massive'' 1989 world tour, the band was by all accounts and appearances well on its way to rock stardom-- something they ended up achieving just two years later with the album ''Music/OutOfTime'' and its lead single, "Losing My Religion". From then on, the once-cult hit [[BreakthroughHit was now an international household name.]]
24
25As time went by the band was plagued by personal disaster-- most prominently, Michael Stipe's friends Creator/RiverPhoenix and Music/KurtCobain respectively died of a drug overdose in 1993 and [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]] in 1994, and longtime drummer Bill Berry suffered a brain aneurysm onstage a year later, ultimately retiring in 1997 -- but the band still continued on. It seems their career came and went in full circle: they began as a cult band, saw massive success, and eventually dwindled to being a cult band again. Their first five ([[BrokenBase or seven, or eight, depending on where you stand]]) are still considered among the best albums ever, and their last two are well-regarded as a successful comeback, so it's not as though they've been forgotten.
26
27One notable aspect of R.E.M. was their approach to making music. Whereas most bands have [[IAmTheBand a clear leader]], this one was a purely democratic entity. They never did anything unless all members agreed on it unanimously, and every member contributed something to the songwriting. (It was admitted, though, that singer Stipe had ''de facto'' veto power over what he would or wouldn't sing, which perhaps gave him a little more influence than everyone else.)
28
29The band announced [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/r-e-m-break-up-after-three-decades-20110921 their amicable breakup]] on 21 September 2011, saying that they achieved everything they wanted as a band and wanted to simply call it a day. This was followed by a small press tour of Michael Stipe making it clear that there would never be a reunion. Buck and Stipe have since gone on to solo careers, with Buck also continuing his participation in various groups.
30
31In 2007, the group was inducted into the UsefulNotes/RockAndRollHallOfFame.
32
33Currently, Creator/UniversalMusicGroup distributes the band's entire discography worldwide, they own the I.R.S. releases outright, and distribute the albums formerly handled by [[Creator/WarnerRecords Warner Bros. Records]] on behalf of Concord (to which the band has licensed these albums), which distributes its entire catalog through UMG.
34----
35!!Members:
36* Michael Stipe: Vocals (1980–2011)
37* Peter Buck: Guitar, mandolin (1980–2011)
38* Mike Mills: Bass, backing vocals, keyboards (1980–2011)
39* Bill Berry: Drums, backing vocals (1980–97[[note]]occasionally returned in one-off performances.[[/note]])
40
41!!Discography:
42!!!Studio discography:[[index]]
43* ''Chronic Town'' EP (1982)
44* ''Music/{{Murmur}}'' (1983)
45* ''Music/{{Reckoning}}'' (1984)
46* ''Music/FablesOfTheReconstruction''[[note]]Alternatively titled ''Reconstruction of the Fables''[[/note]] (1985)
47* ''Music/LifesRichPageant'' (1986)
48* ''Music/{{Document}}'' (1987)
49* ''Music/{{Green}}'' (1988)
50* ''Music/OutOfTime'' (1991)
51* ''Music/AutomaticForThePeople'' (1992)
52* ''Music/{{Monster|REMAlbum}}'' (1994)
53* ''Music/NewAdventuresInHiFi'' (1996)
54* ''Music/{{Up|REMAlbum}}'' (1998)
55* ''Music/{{Reveal}}'' (2001)
56* ''Music/AroundTheSun'' (2004)
57* ''Music/{{Accelerate}}'' (2008)
58* ''Music/CollapseIntoNow'' (2011)
59[[/index]]
60
61You can now vote for your favorite R.E.M. album by heading over to the [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/Sandbox/BestAlbumREM Best Album crowner]].
62
63!!!Other releases:
64* ''Dead Letter Office'' rarities compilation[[note]]includes ''Chronic Town'' in full on CD copies[[/note]] (1987)
65* ''Eponymous'' best-of compilation (1988)
66* ''The Best of R.E.M.'' best-of compilation (1991)
67* ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'' film soundtrack (1999)
68* ''Not Bad for No Tour'' promotional EP (2001)
69* ''In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003'' best-of compilation (2003)
70* ''And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987'' best-of compilation (2006)
71* ''R.E.M. Live'' (2007)
72* ''Live at the Olympia'' (2009)
73* ''Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011'' retrospective best-of compilation (2011)
74* ''Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions'' (2014)
75----
76
77!!Oh no, I've troped too much, I haven't troped enough:
78* AnAesop: The message of "Everybody Hurts" is "Don't kill yourself; you're not alone."
79* AlbumFiller: The group was short on material for ''Lifes Rich Pageant'', so they recorded two 1980 songs ("Just A Touch" and "What If We Give It Away"), a 1984 song ("Hyena"), a 1985 song ("I Believe") and a cover ("Superman", originally by The Clique).
80* AlbumTitleDrop:
81** The title to the EP ''Chronic Town'' is found in the song "Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)".
82** The same happens with "Circus Envy" on ''Monster''.
83** Stipe wonders "Have I missed the big reveal?" from ''Reveal'''s "I've Been High".
84** Also, "Begin the Begin" from ''Lifes Rich Pageant'' comes very close to doing so, mentioning "Life's rich demands." No pageants, though.
85** ''Collapse into Now'' gets its title drop from Stipe's final line in the closing track, "Blue".
86** ''Around the Sun'' and ''Accelerate'' both have an actual TitleTrack.
87* AlliterativeName: Apart from Mike Mills and Bill Berry, this mainly applies to song titles:
88** "Sitting Still" and "We Walk" from ''Murmur''.
89** "Pretty Persuasion" from ''Reckoning''.
90** "Begin the Begin" from ''Lifes Rich Pageant''.
91** "Bang and Blame" from ''Monster''.
92** "Supernatural Superserious" from ''Accelerate''.
93** "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" from ''Collapse into Now''.
94* AlternativeRock: Widely considered the de-facto TropeMakers.
95* {{Animesque}}: The cover art for the ''Not Bad for No Tour'' EP depicts the band in this style, sketched by Motofumi Nakashima.
96* AnswerSong: "Me In Honey" is one to "Eat For Two" by Music/TenThousandManiacs. "Eat For Two" is about an unplanned TeenPregnancy from the mother's perspective; "Me In Honey" is from the father's perspective.
97* AntiLoveSong: "The One I Love". Many people take it as a straightforward love song, despite the aggressive music and such decidedly non-romantic sentiments as "A simple prop to occupy my time."[[note]]If you interpret this as the song itself is the prop to occupy the singers time while he's away from his love it's more plausible.[[/note]]
98%%ZCE - Not to mention "I'll Take the Rain".
99* ArcWords:
100** Water, rain, and ocean recur on ''Reckoning'' (marked and originally intended to be titled ''File Under Water'') and fire and lightning recur on ''Document'' (marked "File Under Fire"). Parodied with ''Eponymous'', which is marked "file under grain," tying into both the field of grain on the cover art and the theme of hunger on "Talk About the Passion" (which is included on the compilation).
101** Fans have noted that ''Monster'' features frequent use of the words "clown" and "cartoon."
102** References to "the radio," positive, negative, and neutral, repeatedly appear throughout their oeuvre, stretching all the way to their final song, "Hallelujah", and even Michael Stipe's post-R.E.M. solo career.
103* ArtifactTitle:
104** "Texarkana" from ''Out of Time''. The name was in the original set of lyrics Stipe wrote for the song before he tossed them and let Mike Mills write his own (Mills ended up [[StepUpToTheMicrophone singing lead vocals on the song]] as a result), also rendering the title a [[NonAppearingTitle non-appearing one]].
105** Similarly, "The Lifting" from ''Reveal'' had the lyric "You said you'd found the lifting" replaced by "You said the air was singing" in the transition from demo to album.
106* AsTheGoodBookSays: "So. Central Rain" alludes to the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders.
107** "New Test Leper" directly quotes Matthew 7:1 ("Judge not, lest ye be judged").
108* AudienceParticipationSong: "The One I Love", "Man on the Moon", "Everybody Hurts", "Drive", and "Losing My Religion" all qualify.
109** The audience supplies the shouts of "Get up! Get up!" during live performances of "Get Up."
110** In the live version of "New Test Leper" from ''Live at the Olympia'', the audience sings along with the opening line.
111* BigApplesauce: "Leaving New York", kind of. Michael Stipe considers New York his "adopted hometown".
112* BigOlEyebrows: Bill Berry sports an impressive pair; according to him, Michael Stipe has claimed that they were the whole reason he wanted the band members to get together. They even made the cover of ''Lifes Rich Pageant'' all by themselves. As time went on, the eyebrows eventually merged into a single, bushy monobrow.
113* BookEnds:
114** "Monty Got A Raw Deal" begins and ends with the line "Monty, this seems strange to me".
115** ''Collapse into Now'' ends with a reprise of its opening song, "Discoverer".
116** The compilation ''And I Feel Fine'' begins with "Begin the Begin" and ends with "It's the End of the World as We Know It."
117** The band's first release was the single "Radio Free Europe" in 1981, with prominent references to the titular medium. Their final song, 2011's "Hallelujah", features prominent mention of the radio in its second and last verse.
118* BoxedSet: The band released ''The Automatic Box'' in Germany in 1993 as part of the marketing campaign for the previous year's ''Music/AutomaticForThePeople''. The set contains B-sides from both that album and 1988's ''Music/{{Green}}'', plus outtakes from 1991's ''Music/OutOfTime''.
119* CallToAgriculture: Bill Berry quit the band to become a hay farmer, a profession he maintained for several years before eventually retiring.
120* CallBack:
121** In "Houston", Stipe sings "If the storm doesn't kill me, the government will." One album later, in the sequel song "Oh My Heart", Stipe sings, "The storm didn't kill me. The government changed." A bit of RealitySubtext plays into this, as ''Accelerate'' was released during the 2008 election, in the waning months of UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush's heavily maligned final term as president, while ''Collapse into Now'' was released midway into UsefulNotes/BarackObama's heavily ''praised'' first term as president.
122** The full-length version of "The Great Beyond" has Michael singing "Here's a little agit for the never believer, here's a little ghost for the offering" in the final couple of choruses. The lyrics originated in their previous Andy Kaufman song, "Man on the Moon", after which [[Film/ManOnTheMoon the film featuring "The Great Beyond"]] was named.
123** The ''Eponymous'' compilation calls back to the messages on the spines of ''Reckoning'' and ''Document'' to "File Under Water" and "File Under Fire" with an instruction to "File Under Grain," referring to the cover art and the theme of hunger in "Talk About the Passion" (which is featured in the compilation).
124* CanonDiscontinuity:
125** While they still play material from the two albums live, Peter Buck has allegedly disowned both ''Fables of the Reconstruction'' and ''Around the Sun''. Well, maybe not disowned ''Fables'', just admitted to being disappointed in it. The band have reevaluated it in recent years, most notably for its deluxe edition. It's more of a case of "good songs but we killed them in the studio". ''Around the Sun'' meanwhile is still looked at by the band with nothing but disdain as a result of the band having been severely burnt out during production.
126** Also, it's probably a good idea not to bring up "Shiny Happy People" around Michael Stipe.
127* CensorBox: The video for "Pop Song 89" has Michael Stipe and a few female dancers. All are topless... and all have bars covering their nipples, Stipe included. The home media and [=YouTube=] releases feature the video uncensored.
128* CensoredTitle: "Star Me Kitten". The song actually says "Fuck Me Kitten", which was in fact its ''second'' title[[note]]its first was "Hey Love"[[/note]], before Creator/MegRyan (who was filming ''Film/SleeplessInSeattle'' in... well, Seattle, where the band recorded part of ''Automatic for the People'') convinced Stipe to change it, saying that where she'd grown up, if such a swear appeared on any album, it wouldn't have been put on shelves (or at least would've gotten a "Parental Advisory" label).
129* ChangedForTheVideo: The video for "So. Central Rain" has Michael Stipe doing a live vocal because he refused to lip-sync at the time.
130* ChristianityIsCatholic: As might be expected for a Southern band, averted in most cases; the (limited, but definitely there) references to Christianity are distinctly Protestant. What's particularly odd is the time they play this straight: the imagery used in the video for "Losing My Religion", much of which derives from Renaissance motifs--which were mostly created by Catholic artists and reflect Catholic thinking.
131* ChristmasEpisode: Taking after Music/TheBeatles, the band released exclusive singles to members of their fan club around Christmastime every year during their time on Creator/WarnerBrosRecords (i.e. 1988-2011), usually consisting of a CoverVersion of a famous Christmas song plus a cover of a non-Christmas track by a different artist. As time went on, they also started tossing in exclusive live recordings, remixes, and album outtakes.
132* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}:
133** Michael Stipe. His shyness and odd sense of humor are quite clear to anyone who watches an early interview.
134** Bill Berry was implied to be this in the early years, mainly because of his monobrow.
135* ColorMotif: The band was quite associated with the color yellow. ''Dead Letter Office'', ''Eponymous'', ''Green'', ''Out of Time'', ''Reveal'' and ''Collapse into Now'' used it dominantly on the cover, and ''Automatic for the People'' had a yellow CD tray on early pressings. ''Murmur'' was even reissued with a yellow logo instead of a blue one (which was the one widely available in the UK for years). Also, the videos ''This Film Is On'', ''Tourfilm'', ''Parallel'', ''Road Movie'' used yellow dominantly often for the logo, as did the live album ''Live at the Olympia''.
136** Despite their association with yellow, the band initially made use of blue as their main color motif, with ''Chronic Town'', ''Murmur'', and ''Reckoning'' all featuring prominent blue tones on their cover art, with ''Chronic Town'' also featuring a blue back cover ''Murmur'' including blue-toned photographs of the band members on the back cover of LP copies and in the liner notes of CD ones. At the same time though, the back cover and CD liner notes for both ''Murmur'' and ''Reckoning'' would begin the band's association with yellow. ''In Time'' would briefly hark back to this earlier motif by featuring its own predominantly blue cover art and disc label.
137* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Many listeners mistakenly perceived "[[AntiLoveSong The One I Love]]" to be a {{silly love song|s}} when it first came out, which most likely contributed to it being such a big hit (EpicRiff aside).
138* ConceptAlbum: Loosely; several of the songs on ''Automatic for the People'' are about death in some way or another.
139* ContinuityNod:
140** "The Great Beyond" features the lines "Here's a little agit for the never-believer/Here's a little ghost for the offering" as a CallBack to "Man on the Moon", where those lines are originally from.
141** "Sing for the Submarine", off ''Accelerate'', name-checks "Feeling Gravitys Pull", "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," and ''Around the Sun'''s "Electron Blue" and "High-Speed Train".
142** "Houston", also on ''Accelerate'', starts with the line "If the storm doesn't kill me, the government will." "Oh, My Heart", on the following album ''Collapse Into Now'', features the line "The storm didn't kill me. The government changed."
143* CoverVersion: Several.
144** Only two covers ever made it into their official studio discography: A cover of "Superman" by sixties garage rock band The Clique, which barely survived becoming a B-side to end up as the last song on ''Lifes Rich Pageant'', and Music/{{Wire}}'s "Strange" on ''Document''. Both are (arguably) examples of CoveredUp.
145** Covers were more frequent in live performances and on their {{B Side}}s, the latter being collected on their 1987 album ''Dead Letter Office'': "Crazy" by Pylon, "Toys in the Attic" by Music/{{Aerosmith}}, "Pale Blue Eyes", "Femme Fatale" and "There She Goes Again" by Music/TheVelvetUnderground, and [[IntoxicationEnsues a drunkenly-recorded version]] of "King of the Road" by Roger Miller.
146** B-side covers released after ''Dead Letter Office'' included "First We Take Manhattan" by Music/LeonardCohen (used for both the ''I'm Your Fan'' tribute album and as a B-side to "Drive"), "Dark Globe" by Music/SydBarrett, and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". The band also recorded a cover of "Number 9 Dream" for a Music/JohnLennon tribute album with Bill Berry temporarily back in the fold. The Troggs' "Love Is All Around" was a B-side on 1991's "Radio Song" single, and they also played it during their appearance at MTV's Unplugged series that same year; that version thus appeared on the album taken from that session in 2014. In terms of live performances post-1987, the band would typically close out shows on the ''Music/{{Green}}'' tour with a cover of [[Music/TheVelvetUndergroundAlbum "After Hours"]], again by Music/TheVelvetUnderground.
147** Several further cover versions were included on their Christmas fanclub-only singles, including "See No Evil" by Music/{{Television}}, "Summertime" from ''Theatre/PorgyAndBess'', "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak, "Sex Bomb" by Music/{{Flipper}}, and "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor (among others).
148* {{Crawl}}: Used in the video for "Bad Day", fitting the mock-news report style.
149* CreepyMonotone: Stipe sings "Drive" in one of these. The melody of this song is almost literally monotonous, hanging on the tonic of the underlying chord and hardly ever moving away from it.
150* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Fables of the Reconstruction'', ''Automatic for the People'', ''Monster'', ''Accelerate''.
151* DeadpanSnarker: The other three have/had their moments (especially Bill Berry), but [[TheSnarkKnight Peter Buck]] takes the cake.
152* TheDeepSouth: They avoided the stereotypes associated with this, in that they were and are a bunch of urbane, well-educated liberals, but it was nevertheless foisted on them in their early career, especially by the UK music press, who threw around phrases like "the glory and mystery of the Deep South" in articles about the band. They were, however, quietly proud of being from where they're from. For instance, in a 1989 interview for Irish radio, Peter Buck was trying to recall the name of the screenwriter of ''Film/TheNightOfTheHunter'', and when he finally remembered that it was James Agee, he commented "Great writer" and couldn't resist adding "''Southern'' writer."
153* DigitalDestruction: When the rarities compilation ''Dead Letter Office'' was released on CD, the entirety of ''Chronic Town'' was appended to the end as bonus material. However, due to a mastering error, the stereo channels for the EP's songs are swapped. This was later corrected for the international BoxedSet ''The Originals'' and the standalone CD release of ''Chronic Town'' in 2022.
154* DistaffCounterpart: Robert Christgau referred to Stipe and Music/TenThousandManiacs frontwoman Natalie Merchant as "musical kissing cousins" for the latter's similar jangle-pop sound. The two were also romantically linked for a while, and Stipe contributed vocals to "A Campfire Song" from 10,000 Maniacs' ''Music/InMyTribe''. Stipe also credited Merchant's influence for the political direction his lyrics went in during the late '80s.
155* DrivenToSuicide: "Try Not to Breathe" may or may not be about this.
156* DroneOfDread: John Paul Jones' {{doomy|DoomsOfDoom}} string arrangement for "Drive" invokes this, on what's after all a very creepy song.
157* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: "Radio Free Europe", ''Chronic Town'', and ''Music/{{Murmur}}'' are full of EchoingAcoustics and studio effects that later albums would mostly forgo, owed to producer Mitch Easter being a fan of Music/{{Kraftwerk}} and wanting to try out various studio experiments in the vein of their work. ''Music/{{Reckoning}}'' would mark the start of their transition into their more well-known sound, owed to Easter wanting to replicate the sound of the band's live performances for their sophomore album.
158* EarthSong: "Fall On Me" which is about air pollution, and "Cuyahoga" which was inspired by Ohio's Cuyahoga River which was so heavily polluted it once caught fire (which comes up in the lyrics).
159* EasterEgg: The DVD video compilation ''When The Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987'' has one. If you play the "Radio Free Europe" video from the menu, you get the video as re-edited by the record company, missing the song's introduction and with some performance footage spliced into it. If you press OK on your DVD controller while it's playing, you get the original video, with the introduction and minus the performance footage, which consists of the band wandering around Howard Finster's Paradise Gardens and convening at the end, plus some sepia-tinted B&W shots of them apparently studying in a schoolroom.
160* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin:
161** ''Murmur'' could've hardly been a more apt title given Stipe's infamously subdued vocal performances.
162** ''Accelerate'' is a much faster and aggressive album than its predecessor ''Around the Sun''.
163** ''Collapse into Now'' hints at their impending breakup.
164* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether: The band members met as students of the University of Georgia in Athens.
165* FaceOnTheCover: Subverted with ''Reckoning'', which features all four band members' faces on its ''back'' cover instead. Played straight with ''Fables of the Reconstruction'', which features all four members' faces on its front cover, though they're slightly obscured by slide projections. ''Collapse into Now'' also features the then-trio waving at the camera on its cover. Partial credit for''Lifes Rich Pageant'' featuring a cropped photo of Bill Berry. Most of the band’s material features photos of its members on or inside its packaging as well.
166* {{Foreshadowing}}: ''Collapse into Now'', their last album, depicts the band on its cover ''waving''.
167* FreeHandedPerformer: Michael Stipe, during the 31-year career of the band, stuck to vocal and songwriting duties, stating that he couldn't "play an instrument to save his life"; the sole exception to this was a brief stint playing guitar on the HiddenTrack [[Music/UpREMAlbum "I'm Not Over You"]]. However, after the band's dissolution, he played keyboards on the soundtrack to the 2014 film ''The Cold Lands''.
168** On the ''Green'' world tour, he would sometimes sing "We Live As We Dream, Alone" by the Music/GangOfFour, accompanying himself by hitting a metal-framed school chair with a metal rod.
169* FunWithAcronyms:
170** R.E.M. is the acronym for "Rapid Eye Movement", a phase of sleep; the band sometimes refers to it being "Rapid Ear Movement". The band have also mentioned that it's not intended to stand for anything and just pulled it out of a dictionary at random.
171--->'''Peter Buck''': [[LampshadeHanging I wish we'd picked a name we didn't have to explain all the time...]]
172** News anchor Creator/DanRather dubbed them "Rather's Emotional Minstrels" upon the release of ''Monster''. That album features the song "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" which was taken from an incident when Rather was attacked by a man who kept asking "Kenneth, what is the frequency?"
173* {{Gayngst}}: "New Test Leper" is about a gay man with AIDS who goes on a talk show hoping to promote acceptance and is humiliated because of the homophobic studio audience and channel executives.
174* GratuitousPanning: The main guitar line of "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1" is panned entirely to one side. There's also a weird, mechanical, tribal percussion part in "Monty Got a Raw Deal" panned entirely to one side. It's only really audible if you're listening carefully, though.
175* GriefSong: "Camera" was written as a tribute to Carol Levy, a photographer friend of the band (and sometime girlfriend of Stipe) who died in a car accident the day after ''Murmur'' was released.
176** "Let Me In" from ''Monster'' is dedicated to Music/KurtCobain.
177* HiddenTrack: The 11th track on ''Green''. It's only ever even referred to on the CD, as the unnamed "11.", which it is officially copyrighted under.
178** To a lesser extent, ''Murmur'', ''Reckoning'' and ''Monster'' each have a small instrumental tune play in between certain songs (after "Shaking Through" on ''Murmur'', just before "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" and after "Little America" on ''Reckoning'', and after "Bang and Blame" on ''Monster'').
179** The CD version of ''New Adventures in Hi-Fi'' includes a short instrumental in the pre-gap before "Leave" -- it's just a minute of the verse riff for "Leave" itself played at a slower tempo and re-arranged for acoustic guitar and keyboard though, so it's really an introduction to "Leave" rather than its own song. Digital versions of the album don't separate the intro from the rest of the song.
180** ''Collapse Into Now''[='=]s closing track "Blue" has a hidden reprise of the opening track "Discoverer" when the song ends.
181** The group said that their omission of "Underneath the Bunker" and "Superman" from the track listing of 'Lifes Rich Pageant' was a deliberate attempt to surprise the listener if the listener didn't lift the needle / flip the tape when they expected the side was over. However, this didn't work as they were printed on the labels, and obviously doesn't work on CD where they are separately indexed and listed on the back.
182* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The band loved this when it came to labeling sides on the LP versions of their albums:
183** ''Chronic Town'': "Chronic Town" and "Poster Torn" (a reference to the lyrics in "Carnival of Sorts")
184** ''Music/{{Murmur}}'' didn't label the sides at all, leaving the track listing on the cover and inner sleeve to determine the running order.
185** ''Music/{{Reckoning}}'': "L" and "R"
186** ''Music/FablesOfTheReconstruction'': "A Side - Fables of the Reconstruction" and "Another Side - Reconstruction of the Fables"
187** ''Music/LifesRichPageant'': "Dinner Side" and "Supper Side"
188** ''Dead Letter Office'': "Post Side" and "Script Side"
189** ''Music/{{Document}}'': "Page" and "Leaf"
190** ''Eponymous'': "Early" and "Late"
191** ''Music/{{Green}}'': "Air" and "Metal"
192** ''Music/OutOfTime'': "Time Side" and "Memory Side"
193** ''Music/AutomaticForThePeople'': "Drive Side" and "Ride Side"
194** ''Music/{{Monster|REM Album}}'': "C" and "D"
195** ''Music/NewAdventuresInHiFi'': "Hi Side" and "Fi Side" on cassette copies; the double-LP release uses standard numbers
196** ''Music/{{Up|REMAlbum}}'': "Upside" and "Downside" on cassette copies; again, the double-LP release uses standard numbers
197** ''Music/{{Reveal}}'': "Chorus Side" and "Ring Side"
198** ''Music/CollapseIntoNow'': "X-Axis" and "Y-Axis"
199* IncrediblyLongNote: Mills sang several different notes as backing vocals in "Star Me Kitten" and had them all looped into sounding like a single, breathless "aaaaaah."
200* IndecipherableLyrics: Good luck understanding a word Michael's saying on ''Murmur''!
201** Or anything pre-''Fables'', for that matter.
202** The chorus to "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" since Stipe manages to compress the entire sentence into one second.
203-->Callmewhenytrytawake her up!
204** The overlaid vocals on "Star 69" makes the track almost indecipherable save the chorus.
205** "Underneath the Bunker" and the chorus of "Orange Crush", as they are both sung through a megaphone.
206* IncomingHam: After a series of increasingly bland (though occasionally brilliant) albums after Bill Berry left, the band let everyone know [[HesBack they were back]] by opening ''Accelerate'' with "Living Well Is the Best Revenge", one of the most epically hammy rockers of their career.
207-->It's only when your poison spins into the life you'd hoped to live
208-->That suddenly you wake up in a shaking panic... WOOOOOOOOWWWW!
209* IntercourseWithYou: "Strange Currencies," "Tongue," "Crush with Eyeliner..." Yeah, a lot of ''Monster'' is like this.
210** "Star Me Kitten" from ''Automatic for the People''.
211* InTheStyleOf:
212** According to Peter Buck, "Near Wild Heaven" was written as a pastiche of Music/TheBeachBoys, being put together on the heels of Creator/CapitolRecords' CompilationRerelease [=CDs=] in 1990. Buck specifically mentions having been listening copiously to the ''Music/SmileySmile''[=/=]''Music/WildHoney'' combo CD during the recording sessions.
213** [[Music/UpREMAlbum "At My Most Beautiful"]], [[Music/{{Reveal}} "Beat a Drum", "Summer Turns to High", and "Beachball"]] were also all written as musical homages to Music/TheBeachBoys, of whom Mike Mills, Peter Buck, and Bill Berry were fans.
214** Michael Stipe described "Endgame" as an attempt at mimicking the style of Music/HenryMancini, whose work he grew up listening to.
215* TheInvisibleBand: Many early video examples, such as "Fall on Me", "Pretty Persuasion", "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" and "Orange Crush".
216** Also right at the end: The video for "Blue" has Lindsey Lohan, but not the band members.
217** "Crush With Eyeliner" is an interesting variation- it's a montage of various Japanese teens miming to the song, with REM themselves briefly watching the footage.
218* IronicNurseryTune: "Drive."
219* {{Irony}}: With Bill. The band were understandably burnt out by the long ''Green'' tour, and didn't perform for almost three years. Bill told the others that he wanted to be in a rock band that toured, and threatened to quit if their next record didn't have a tour. Then when they were touring for ''Monster'', he collapsed onstage from a ruptured brain aneurysm. As luck would have it, the city where they were performing was home to a prominent Swedish neurosurgeon who saved Berry's life.
220* JesusWasWayCool: The opening lines from "New Test Leper" would seem to fit:
221-->I can't say that I love Jesus\
222That would be a hollow claim\
223He did make some observations\
224And I'm quoting them today\
225"Judge not lest ye be judged"\
226What a beautiful refrain\
227The studio audience disagrees\
228Have his lambs all gone astray?
229** The lyrics for "Voice of Harold" are simply Michael Stipe reading off the liner notes from a gospel LP called ''The Joy of Knowing Jesus'', so naturally they fit this as well.
230* JustJokingJustification: From "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite": "tell her she can kiss my ass, then laugh and say that you were only kidding, [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay that way she'll know that it's really really really really me, me."]]
231* LampshadeHanging: The final verse of the anti-Reagan ProtestSong "Ignoreland" includes the lines "I know that this is vitriol, no solution, spleen-venting/But I feel better having screamed, don't you?"
232* LargeHam: While at first Michael Stipe was constrained to the point his vocals were mumbled, as time went on he really let loose - while it's easier to notice in faster tracks such as "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Discoverer", the mellow musical backing of "Everybody Hurts" is contrasted by Stipe's bellowing. And live, there was [[https://youtu.be/kBr4PCspDyA that spasmic dance]].
233* LeadBassist: Mike Mills' bass playing is very melodic and especially prominent on the band's early recordings. As R.E.M was heavily democratic, he also contributed a lot of songwriting.
234* LighterAndSofter: "Shiny Happy People" -- it's worth noting the instrumental backing was originally written with a darker theme in mind. ''Around the Sun'' album-wise, if not necessarily the subject matter.
235** ''Reveal''.
236** Even ''Reckoning'' is this; it is much more jangly and upbeat than its predecessor ''Murmur'', with only a couple of tracks that break from that format ("Time After Time" and "Camera").
237** Lyrics-wise ''Out of Time'' can be an example of this, as it showed the band's lyrics moving away from the occasional [[ProtestSong sociopolitical protests]] ("The Flowers of Guatemala", "Orange Crush", "World Leader Pretend") and {{Green Aesop}}s ("Cuyahoga", "Fall on Me") that had become more prominent in the late eighties towards more introspective, personal material.
238** Their folk-rock leanings could be this at the outset, compared with the edgier alternative bands of their era. Their IRS-era and early Warner-era singles remain staples of adult alternative radio.
239* ListSong: "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)". "Imitation of Life" to a degree.
240** "Country Feedback", as well. "Self hurt, plastics, collections. Self help, self pain, EST, psychics, fuck all."
241* LonelyPianoPiece: "Perfect Circle".
242* LongRunnerLineUp: 17 years with Bill Berry (Type 1) and 13 years without (Type 2).
243* LongestSongGoesFirst: ''Music/FablesOfTheReconstruction'' opens with the 4:48 "Feeling Gravitys Pull".
244* LongestSongGoesLast:
245** ''Chronic Town'' closes with "Stumble" (5:41).
246** ''Music/{{Document}}'' closes with "Oddfellows Local 151" (5:21).
247** ''Music/CollapseIntoNow'' closes with "Blue" (5:46).
248* LoudnessWar: ''Monster'', ''In Time'', ''Accelerate'', and ''Collapse into Now'' seem to be the worst offenders. ''Monster'''s distorted mastering was rare in its time and is at least mitigated by it being a stylistic choice (matching the more {{grunge}}-oriented direction of the album in general), but has sadly become much more common nowadays.
249* LoveIsLikeReligion: Zig-zagged by "Losing My Religion". The music video features religious imagery, although the song itself isn't about religion: it's derived from the Southern expression meaning "Losing one's temper" or "Being at the end of one's rope"; Thus, the song is about unrequited love.
250* LyricalColdOpen: Several examples.
251** "Bandwagon", an outtake from ''Fables'' that eventually became the B-side to the "Cant Get There from Here" single. Later found on ''Dead Letter Office''.
252** "King of Comedy" from ''Monster''.
253** "The Wake-Up Bomb" and "New Test Leper" from ''New Adventures in Hi-Fi''.
254** "Parakeet" and the hidden track "I'm Not Over You" from ''Up''.
255** "Supernatural Superserious" from ''Accelerate''.
256** "We All Go Back to Where We Belong."
257* LyricalDissonance: "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite." It seems like a fun song, but it's actually about dying in your sleep. Or suicide, depending on who you ask.
258** "Hollow Man", at least in the chorus and bridge.
259** "7 Chinese Bros" sounds like quite a jolly song. Then you find out it is about an affair Michael had, in which he split up a man and a woman and he went out with both of them behind each other's back. It's wrapped in the guise of a Chinese folk tale called the "Five Chinese Brothers" which is also pretty dark and is basically a metaphor for selfishness. So the song essentially is about Michael's guilt at having being part of said affair, despite having a jolly tune.
260** "Fretless" (an ''Out of Time'' out-take that was featured on the ''Film/UntilTheEndOfTheWorld'' soundtrack in 1991 and later the ''In Time'' best-of & rarities compilation) is about this as well. "He has got his work and she comes easy, they each come around when the other is gone. Me, I think I got stuck somewhere inbetween..." Not jolly, though.
261** For that matter, its demo version Voice of Harold which parlays the most redundant information from the liner notes to a Gospel LP.
262** "Bad Day" is a very happy song musically-speaking, but has quite gritty lyrics. It was probably meant to hearten up people who had [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin bad days.]]
263** The opening lines of "Drive" are "Hey, kids, rock and roll / nobody tells you where to go", which in print looks like a line from an upbeat, fist-pumping rock & roll song...except that it's sung in a creepy monotone in a very downbeat song indeed.
264* LyricalShoehorn: Played for laughs in "Voice of Harold", which consists of Michael Stipe singing out the liner notes to a gospel album to the tune of "7 Chinese Bros." Many parts of the writing inevitably don't fit the meter of the song, resulting in him frequently having to either drag out, rush through, or add pauses in the middle of some of the words.
265* MilitaryBrat: Michael Stipe's father was a serviceman in the United States Army whose career resulted in frequent relocations for his family.
266* MinisculeRocking: "Underneath the Bunker" (1:27) and "That Someone Is You" (1:44).
267* MoodWhiplash: ''New Adventures in Hi-Fi'' opens with the jazz-inspired "How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us", a super-mellow, super-somber track with Mike Mills playing a meandering piano solo in the middle. Immediately following this is "The Wake-Up Bomb", a high-octane, fast-paced glam rock track. Immediately following ''this'' is the largely-acoustic laid-back JesusWasWayCool track "New Test Leper"... let's just say that ''New Adventures in Hi-Fi'' is an album ''rife'' with these.
268** ''Out of Time'' is also full of them, as evidenced by the singles released. The somber mandolin led folk song "Losing My Religion" was the first single, followed up by "Shiny Happy People", an upbeat pop-rock song with string interludes and guest vocals from Kate Pierson, then "Radio Song", a funk influenced song which featured a rap from KRS-One. In Europe, "Shiny Happy People" was followed by "Near Wild Heaven", which is also a happy song, but features Mike Mills (their bassist) on lead vocals.
269* MotorMouth: Stipe has his moments, such as the chorus of "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" (as mentioned above) and just about all of "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)".
270** Peter Buck doesn't sing, but he does tend to talk ''very fast''.
271* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: They quickly had their fill of people renaming ''Murmur'' to ''Mumble'' because of Stipe's early vocal stylings.
272* NewSoundAlbum:
273** Actually, most of their catalog, but the most drastic departures were the {{grunge}}-heavy ''Music/{{Monster|REMAlbum}}'' and the techno-flavored ''Music/{{Up|REMAlbum}}'', the latter largely as a result of Berry's departure.
274** ''Music/LifesRichPageant'' had Stipe enunciating his vocals, Buck playing more conventional riffs instead of jangly arpeggios, and the band as a whole casting off the more PostPunk-inspired elements that had characterized their first three albums.
275* NoTitle: The final track on ''Green'' is untitled (Its registered title with the Library of Congress is "11", from its track number, and some of the lyrics were sent out in a fan club mailing under the title "So Awake Volunteer").
276* NonAppearingTitle: "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite", though it comes close twice.
277** "New Test Leper" from ''New Adventures in Hi-Fi'', "Texarkana" and "Country Feedback" from ''Out of Time'', "The Lifting" from ''Reveal'' and "Good Advices" from ''Fables'' also count. "Feeling Gravity's Pull" from the latter album comes close in the chorus.
278** "Time After Time (Anneliese)" is a subversion; "Annelise" is never heard in the song, but "Time After Time" is.
279** "Binky the Doormat", though the chorus comes slightly close with the lyric "I wore my doormat face". The rest of the title is a ''Film/ShakesTheClown'' ShoutOut.
280* TheNotRemix: The "Mutual Drum Horn Mix" of "Finest Worksong", which differs from the ''Document'' version in that the drums are given more prominence in the mix, and a horn section (by the Uptown Horns) has been added. Similarly, there's the "Different Vocal Mix" of "Gardening at Night", featuring an [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin alternate take of Stipe singing the lead vocals.]] Coincidentally, both appear on ''Eponymous''.
281* NothingLeftToDoButDie: "Try Not to Breathe" appears to be written from the perspective of someone in this frame of mind.
282* ObsessionSong: WordOfGod says "Losing My Religion" is this.
283* ObligatoryBondageSong: "Supernatural Superserious" is an unusually happy and romantic variation on this theme.
284* OneSteveLimit: Possibly the reason why Michael Mills goes by "Mike". Ironically, Michael Stipe's real first name is John.
285* OrdinaryPeoplesMusicVideo:
286** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycvJHQUqU1M "Crush With Eyeliner"]] shows Japanese fans impersonating the band members and miming to the song.
287** [[https://youtu.be/0vqgdSsfqPs "Imitation of Life"]] is set at an outdoor party, as a 20-second clip alternately played backwards and forwards and zooming in and out on different parts of the party.
288* PepTalkSong: Mike Mills said that the message of "Drive" was for kids to take charge of their own lives.
289* PerformanceVideo: "So. Central Rain" is notable for having a live vocal, as Michael Stipe refused to lip-sync.
290** The videos for "Life And How To Live It" and "Feeling Gravity's Pull" are technically these in that they show the band performing, but because they contain so much pausing, tape reversing and general fiddling with the medium, they might be the band performing almost anything. [[note]]The effects were the same ones used by Jim Herbert in ''Left of Reckoning'': put the raw footage into an analog video editing machine and then record the output as you play the tape forward, stop it, play it backwards and generally interrupt the flow of it.[[/note]]
291* ProtestSong: Lots of these -- "Fall on Me", "The Flowers of Guatemala", "Welcome to the Occupation", "Exhuming [=McCarthy=]", "Disturbance at the Heron House" (at least according to WordOfGod), "Orange Crush", "Cuyahoga", most of the albums ''Around the Sun'' and ''Accelerate'' (particularly "Final Straw" and "Mr. Richards").
292** "Ignoreland" was a gigantic TakeThat aimed at the Reagan administration.
293* PurpleProse: Bill Berry's writings for the ''And I Feel Fine'' GreatestHitsAlbum is written in extremely flowery language, which can provide an amusing contrast when paired with notes about how "Gardening at Night" was named after a roadie's UnusualEuphemism for taking a piss.
294* TheQuietOne: Michael Stipe was ''painfully'' shy in the band's early days, so much so that when the band appeared on ''Late Night with David Letterman'', Stipe actually hid behind Peter Buck so Letterman wouldn't talk to him. He's outgrown it almost completely, though.
295** Bill Berry as well, though to a considerably lesser extent, at least before his aneurysm.
296* RadioSong: "Radio Song". The tune seemingly blames the radio for destroying society with monotonous low-grade crap.
297--> [=DJs=] communicate to the masses\
298Sex and violent classes\
299Now our children grow up prisoners\
300All their life, radio listeners
301* RearrangeTheSong: The live version of "Try Not to Breathe" is somewhat faster and heavier, sounding more desperate and pained than the already-haunting studio version.
302** Another ''Automatic for the People'' song that sounded notably different live was "Drive" - the studio version is again haunting and acoustic-based, whereas the live version they played at the time was faster, set to a funk rhythm, and featured distorted guitar. In later performances, they went back to approximating the studio arrangement, though.
303* RefugeInTheWest: * The song ''West of the Fields'' has allusions to Greek mythology, in particular to Elysium, also called Elysian Fields. This land, according to Homer, was located on the western edge of the Earth. It was described to be somewhat like a paradise.
304* {{Retraux}}:
305** "Mine Smell Like Honey" from ''Collapse into Now'' was designed to sound like an 80s R.E.M. song, and is quite reminiscent of "These Days" in structure. However, it's pretty obvious that it was recorded later, due to the LoudnessWar mastering.
306** On tracks such as "Circus Envy", Stipe's vocals are purposefully mixed low in the mix, like he was on R.E.M.'s early work. Unlike that early work, they are mostly drowned out by extremely loud distorted guitar. This raw sound was later done on "Horse to Water" from ''Accelerate'' as well.
307* RunningGag: Since the band recorded the song "Voice of Harold", the phrase "A must!" has been used constantly in reference to their work, both by the band and by fans.
308* SelfPlagiarism
309** Zig-zagged with "Bad Day." It has the same tempo and near-identical chords to "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)," but only because the former is a recycled early draft of the latter. Michael Stipe was surprised how few people noticed.
310** "Strange Currencies" from ''Monster'' lifts the melody from "Everybody Hurts".
311** Played straight with "The Great Beyond," which is a straight-up sound-alike of "Man on the Moon," better tying it into [[Film/ManOnTheMoon the movie which was named after their song]].
312* SequelSong: "Rotary 11" is the sequel to "Rotary 10". There were never Rotarys 1-9; it's just the band's sense of humor.
313** "New Orleans Instrumental No. 2" is the sequel to "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1".
314** "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" was written as a sequel to "Bad Day" (which was started in the ''Lifes Rich Pageant'' sessions in 1986), but "Bad Day" was never released until it was re-recorded for ''In Time'' in 2003. This means people often see it the other way round.
315** "Ages of You" is the sequel to "Burning Down". The band had gotten bored of playing "Burning Down", and wrote "Ages of You" around the parts of "Burning Down" that they liked. However, they ended up liking both songs after all, so decided to record both when it came to the ''Reckoning'' sessions. (They wouldn't see the light of day until the UK "Wendell Gee" single and the ''Dead Letter Office'' compilation album, however.)
316** "The Great Beyond" is one to "Man on the Moon".
317** "Oh My Heart" off ''Collapse into Now'' is one to "Houston" from ''Accelerate''. The former sounds like a more cheerful version of the latter, and includes a CallBack.
318* SesameStreetCred: "Furry Happy Monsters", possibly the band's only usage of "Shiny Happy People" since it was disowned.
319* ShoutOut:
320** The band's name is a nod to the similar three-letter initialism band Music/{{XTC}}.
321** James Dean, Martin Sheen, and Steve [=McQueen=] get name-checked on "Electrolite," and "Man on the Moon" was written in memory of Creator/AndyKaufman (and became so associated with him that... well, see TitledAfterTheSong below).
322** The title of ''Lifes Rich Pageant'' came from a line of dialogue in Creator/PeterSellers' ''[[Franchise/ThePinkPanther Pink Panther]]'' movie ''Film/AShotInTheDark''.
323** "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" name-checks a whole bunch of people with the initials LB: Music/LeonardBernstein, Leonid Brezhev, Lester Bangs and Lenny Bruce. This line was inspired by a dream Michael Stipe had where he was attending a party whose guests' names all started with those initials.
324** David Essex's "Rock On" is quoted in "Drive".
325** "The Wake Up Bomb" off of ''New Adventures in Hi-Fi'' tosses out two, one right after the other:
326-->"Get drunk and sing along to Music/{{Queen|Band}}\
327Practice my [[Music/MarcBolan T. Rex]] moves and make the scene"
328** "Feeling Gravitys Pull" references {{surrealis|m}}t photographer Man Ray.
329** "Life and How to Live It" references ''Life: How to Live'', a book written by Brivs Mekis, an eccentric author from the band's hometown of Athens, GA. Mekis had many copies of the book printed, but hardly sold any, and when he died, people clearing out his house found a whole closet full of them. Copies of ''Life: How to Live'' are a top collectible, not just for R.E.M. fans but for fans of the culture of Athens, GA.
330** "Little America" includes the line "Jefferson, I think we're lost" in reference to Jefferson Holt, who at the time was their manager (and bus driver, hence the phrase). Later post-Holt performances of the song changed the line to "Washington, I think we're lost", referencing the band's disillusionment with the government.[[note]]As well as the fact that Holt ceased being the band's manager in 1996 after a rumour that a sexual harassment complaint had been lodged against him by one of the management staff.[[/note]]
331** "Exhuming [=McCarthy=]" references the late U.S. Senator Joe [=McCarthy=], who infamously accused people left and right of being Communist sympathizers, or Communists themselves, during the "RedScare" of the early 1950s. Included in the studio version of the song is the quote "[[ShutUpHannibal Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?]]", delivered to [=McCarthy=] by then-Army chief counsel Joseph Welch at hearings where [=McCarthy=] accused '''''the Army itself''''' of being infiltrated by Communists.
332** "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" quotes Creator/RichardLinklater. "Richard said, 'Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy.'"
333** "Pop Song 89" features lyrics inspired by Music/TheDoors' "Hello, I Love You".
334** "Departure" includes the lyric "Win a eulogy from William Greider", referencing an author and journalist known for writing about economics. Michael Stipe was asked about the line in a Rolling Stone interview [[note]]Greider wrote a regular column for Rolling Stone in the eighties and nineties[[/note]], and admitted he just mentioned the writer because he needed a rhyme with "hang-glider" and "spider".
335** "Disturbance at the Heron House" is one to ''Literature/AnimalFarm'', at least according to WordOfGod.
336** "Monty Got a Raw Deal" is a tribute to Creator/MontgomeryClift, after whom it is also named.
337** The band's [[https://www.discogs.com/REM-REM2003/release/1971677 2003 fan club holiday single]] features [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Pikachu]] on its front cover.
338** The music videos for "We All Go Back to Where We Belong", consisting solely of Creator/KirstenDunst and John Giorno reacting to the song, were directly inspired by Creator/AndyWarhol's ''Screen Tests''.
339** "Walters Theme" is the band's attempt at recording a jingle for [[https://www.redandblack.com/athensnews/formerly-r-e-m-s-favorite-barbecue-spot-broad-street-location-hasnt-been-able-to/article_9168f956-5b51-11e9-80dc-bf0b60e77117.html a barbecue restaurant]] in Athens, Georgia that they frequented; the restaurant closed in 1990. Additionally, the line "Hey, this is David, I've got a hat the size of Oklahoma" nods to Pere Ubu's "Lonesome Cowboy Dave".
340* SignatureStyle: The band's early years were characterized by Stipe's mumbling vocals, Buck's jangling Rickenbacker 12-strings and use of minor-key melodies.
341* SingingVoiceDissonance: Stipe's distinctive, reedy singing voice (an Irish music journalist once described it as "smarting like a raw and inflamed itch") is a far cry from his gravelly, baritone [[https://youtu.be/wXxoBOMSw1c?t=58 speaking voice]]. On the few occasions when he uses his speaking voice in recordings (e.g. "9-9", "Low", "Blue"), you wouldn't be blamed for thinking the band brought in a guest vocalist.[[note]]One explanation for this is that although Stipe is naturally a baritone, when he sings, the formants in his voice (upper partial frequencies determined by the shape of the interior of the singer's mouth) become louder, and cut through the sound of the band--so that you can always hear Stipe's voice, even if you can't always understand what he's singing.[[/note]]
342* SixthRanger: Session drummer Bill Rieflin, who served as R.E.M.'s de-facto replacement for Bill Berry from 2003 all the way until the band's dissolution in 2011. While never considered an official member, he filled Berry's role as drummer both on-stage and in the studio and additionally contributed bouzouki, keyboards and guitars.
343* TheSomethingSong: "Radio Song" and "Pop Song 89". Almost qualifying: "Finest Worksong".
344* SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein: The TropeNamer is "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)".
345** It's not unique in their discography. Stipe's slurred vocals were one of the band's trademarks in the early years. "Sitting Still" from ''Murmur'' is one case in point.
346* SpecialGuest: Kate Pierson from Music/TheB52s provides backing vocals for several songs on ''Music/OutOfTime''.
347* SpokenWordInMusic: Several examples.
348** "Voice of Harold" has Stipe listing the address of the United Music World Recording Studios, Inc., among other items.
349** "Belong" from ''Out of Time'', "Chance" from the ''Automatic for the People'' sessions and ''Departure'' from ''New Adventures in Hi Fi'' consist of Stipe reading song lyrics to the music track.
350** "Blue" from ''Collapse into Now'' features a distorted Stipe reading a poem while Music/PattiSmith sings sporadically.
351** In his only vocal appearance on an R.E.M. recording, Peter Buck spoke the one verse of Roky Erickson's "I Walked with a Zombie" for a tribute album (the R.E.M. performance featured each member giving their own rendition of that verse; the other three members sung it).
352* StealthPun: ''Lifes Rich Pageant'' has a collage of Bill Berry and some bison as the cover, as a VisualPun on the 19th century soldier and entertainer Buffalo Bill.
353* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Mike Mills sings lead on their cover of the Clique's "Superman" from ''Lifes Rich Pageant'' (because Stipe disliked the cover too much and only did backing vocals), as well as "Near Wild Heaven" and "Texarkana" from ''Out of Time'' (because Mills co-wrote the lyrics to both songs). In concert, Mills also performed lead vocals on more recent performances of "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville".
354** Peter Buck never sang at all on an R.E.M. record, except for their cover version of "I Walked with a Zombie" on the [[Music/The13thFloorElevators Roky Erickson]] tribute album ''Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye'', in which ''every'' member took the lead vocal for a verse (the song is just the same verse over and over again). Even then, Buck didn't sing: he spoke the lyrics.
355* SuccessAsRevenge: The opening track on ''Music/{{Accelerate}}'', "Living Well Is the Best Revenge", revolves around the narrator facing an onslaught of insults, attacks, and other vitriol and brushing them all off in favor of simply living life to the fullest. According to Michael Stipe, the song was penned as a TakeThat to both right-wing pundit Bill O'Reilly and an unnamed person he admired who badmouthed the band, summarizing the song as "fuck you! Sing like this, you talented fuck."
356* SurrealMusicVideo:
357** The entire "L" side of ''Reckoning'' served as the soundtrack to a twentysomething-minute short film entitled ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Left of Reckoning]]'', done by Stipe's art tutor James Herbert, that essentially gives one of these to each of the five songs on the album's "L" side. Through the use of arty close-ups, filters, time speed-ups and slow-downs and other avant garde film choices, it captures the band randomly wandering around the Whirligig Farm in Rabbittown, Georgia.
358** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LewYq40Svw "Electrolite"]], helped along by inverted camera work, fisheye lenses, figures changing size...
359* {{Symploce}}: Used in the song "Driver 8":
360--> But it's still a ways away
361--> But we're still a ways away
362--> But it's still a ways away
363* TakeThat:
364** Many of their songs are this against the government, with the Reagan and Bush (Jr.) administrations the biggest targets. "Mr. Richards" is a particular one to then-vice president Dick Cheney.
365** One of the possible alternative titles for ''Document'' was ''Last Train to [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland]]'', suggested by Peter Buck, who had claimed in an interview that during UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan's presidency, America for him was beginning to feel a lot like said amusement park.
366** As Stipe noted in the liner notes for ''Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage'', an unnamed person whom Stipe had long admired ended up firing one of these at R.E.M. themselves, and an incensed Stipe wrote "Living Well Is the Best Revenge" as his response.
367** "Exhuming [=McCarthy=]" is, as mentioned above, one to U.S. Senator Joseph [=McCarthy=].
368* TalkAboutTheWeather: The chorus of "Pop Song 89" asks "Should we talk about the weather?/Should we talk about the government?". The song itself is a mockery of pop music's banality, and its verses similarly throw jabs at pop music clichés (LoveAtFirstSight, SillyLoveSongs) in the band's typical WordSaladLyrics manner.
369** "So. Central Rain" mentions rain and "Fall on Me" is supposedly about acid rain.
370** "Find the River" seems to be the last words of a dying person who is at peace with their life and is telling their relatives not to worry. The music fits this, not being sad but being wistful and bittersweet.
371** The music video for "Bad Day" features a news cast covering severe weather, not only outside, but in a senator's office and an apartment or two.
372* TitledAfterTheSong: "Man on the Moon" not only became the title of, and was used in, an Creator/AndyKaufman {{Biopic}}, but R.E.M. provided the movie's instrumental underscore and a new song, "The Great Beyond".
373* TitleOnlyChorus: "Catapult", "Low", "Talk About the Passion", "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)", and "Gardening at Night".
374* TruckDriversGearChange: "Shaking Through" from ''Murmur'' and "Stand" from ''Green''. The latter features ''two''.
375** "Exhuming [=McCarthy=]" from ''Document'' does this regularly, having different keys for the verses, choruses, and bridge.
376* UncommonTime: The chorus of "Wanderlust" alternates between 7/4 and 4/4. "Sad Professor" also has an unconventional time signature.
377* TheUnintelligible: Michael Stipe was this in the band's early years; from 1981 to 1983 it was frequently impossible to tell what he was singing and, even when it was possible to tell what the words were, it was usually impossible to tell what he was singing ''about''. In 1985, a UK pop magazine reviewing the year's releases commented "Michael Stipe's nonsense lyrics continue to puzzle the gullible." Amusingly lampshaded by Eddie Vedder when he inducted the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
378* UnreplacedDeparted: The band continued as a trio after drummer Bill Berry left in 1997, hiring session drummers for their albums and tours and eventually settling on Bill Rieflin (but never actually inducting him as an official member) until the band's break-up in 2011.
379* UnusualEuphemism:
380** According to Bill Berry, "Gardening at Night" originated from a roadie's nickname for taking a piss. The band found it so amusingly weird that they based a song around it.
381-->"We were driving at night after a show (I don't remember where), and I was at the wheel of our old car, with a rental trailer in tow. One of my three passengers aimed a directive at me. Rather than inform me of his desire to evacuate his bladder, he instead suggested that I pull over so that he might engage in the task of roadside 'night gardening.' To four guys in their early twenties this was a glaring catalyst for a new song."
382** The "star" in "Star Me Kitten", a substitute for "fuck" (derived from the common use of asterisks to censor words).
383* VisualPun: Overlapping with StealthPun. The cover of ''Lifes Rich Pageant'' has a portrait of Bill Berry in the top half, and a photo of bison in the bottom. Thus, Creator/BuffaloBill.
384* VocalEvolution: Michael Stipe was known in the early '80s for his murky singing voice, which made him notoriously indecipherable when combined with his affinity for WordSaladLyrics. During production of ''Music/LifesRichPageant'', producer Don Gehman got Stipe to start singing more clearly, and the result is that his voice got more articulate and higher-pitched with each successive album; he sounds substantially ''younger'' on 2011's ''Music/CollapseIntoNow'' (released when he was 51) than he did on 1983's ''Music/{{Murmur}}'' (released when he was 23).
385* VocalTagTeam: Mostly between Michael Stipe and Mike Mills. Some of the more straight examples include instances between Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Kate Pierson in the chorus of "Shiny Happy People", Stipe and Mills in one brief instance on "Mine Smell Like Honey," and Stipe and Peaches on "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter." Stipe's "duet" with Music/PattiSmith on "Blue" could also possibly qualify.
386* AWildRapperAppears:
387** Music/KRSOne on "Radio Song".
388** Q-Tip on "The Outsiders".
389* WordPureeTitle: The band's name doesn't stand for "Rapid Eye Movement", which is usually pronounced "REM" rather than "R-E-M". It wasn't meant to actually stand for anything -- they stayed up late writing names on a blackboard and eventually started running through a dictionary, picking out words at random.
390* WordSaladLyrics: ''Chronic Town'' and ''Murmur'' especially, but just about every album has an example of this.
391-->'''Peter Buck:''' ''(on the song "Orange Crush")'' I must have played this song like 3000 times in concert and after all this time I still have no idea what the fuck it's about.[[note]]Michael Stipe has always said that the song is about the US military's use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.[[/note]]
392** Perhaps the band's most notable aversion of this trope is "Everybody Hurts," as Stipe had aimed its lyrical content at teenagers. "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville", which (because it?) wasn't written by Stipe, also serves: it's Mike Mills asking his then-girlfriend to not return to her parents' house in Maryland.
393* YouAreNotAlone: "Everybody Hurts."
394-->So if you feel like you're alone... No. No. No. You are not alone.
395----

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