The band Michael Stipe called “fucking scorched earth”
Michael Stipe rose to fame as the enigmatic frontman of R.E.M in the 1990s. Famed for his brilliant leadership and dynamic performance style, he helped cement the Seattle band as one of the greatest groups of the post-punk era. Alongside his musical career, Stipe is a visual artist, film producer and activist. Here, he opens up about his love for one of the greatest cult bands of the 1980s.
Back in 2020, Stipe was invited to sit down with Pitchfork and discuss some of the records that have defined him. His list was full of oddball gems, the most surprising of which was a german language version of The Beatles‘ ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’. Alongside Nirvana’s Nevermind, Neutral Milk Hotel’s In An Aeroplane Over The Sea and Underworld’s ‘Born Slippy’, Stipe included the B-52s self-titled debut album.
After leaving college and spending a couple of years living with his band in East St. Louis, Stipe ran out of money and was forced to relocate to his parent’s home back in Athens, Georgia. “Everything was beige,” he recalled. “It must’ve been the most boring place on Earth for an 18-year-old punk rocker like me. But as it turns out, Athens was the home of the B-52’s and this whole underground scene.”
With their thrift store aesthetic and wild on-stage antics, The B-52’s quickly established themselves as an essential outsider voice. Formed in October 1976 following drinks in a Chinese restaurant in Athens, GA, the band’s debut sold more than 500,000 copies on the strength of its first single alone, the garage-rock classic ‘Rock Lobster’.
Describing his affection for the record, Stipe continued: “That first B-52’s album still hasn’t gotten the recognition that it deserves as one of the most groundbreaking and influential records of all time—most certainly on me and everyone around the Athens scene. When all the punks in New York were still putting safety pins in their cheeks, the B-52’s were like, ‘Well, that’s what you do, and this is what we do and this is how we do it.’ It was just fucking scorched earth.”
For Stipe, The B-52’s were an essential pipeline of sonic influences from the East Coast and Europe: “A lot of it had to do with the B-52’s traveling up to New York and coming back and saying, ‘You gotta hear this unbelievable record by this band called Joy Division'”, he continued. “Wire put out their third album, 154, which was not punk rock at all. It was more Kraftwerk-y and electronic, very soft music. That was very shocking. And back in Athens, Pylon had this very art-school approach that I was looking at and listening to and taking notes on. I definitely pulled a great deal from them.”
