How The B-52’s changed Michael Stipe’s life
Fans of one of ‘Shiny Happy People’, the most pop-oriented hits to come out of R.E.M., are no strangers to Michael Stipe’s love of new-wave band The B-52’s. While the likes of ‘Losing My Religion’ and ‘Find The River’ struck the more sombre tone the band were known for, their collaboration with The-B52’s Kate Pierson was a way for Stipe to challenge himself, landing one of their most infectious melodies in the process.
Stipe’s love of the band started far earlier than the song’s 1991 release. Back in 1978, Stipe’s parents had moved to Athens, Georgia, and he soon joined them when he ran out of money at college. In a conversation with Pitchfork, Stipe said it was so boring there, everything seemed beige – a “small college town full of hippies and granola”. It’s not exactly where an 18-year-old punk rocker wanted to be.
Fortunately for Stipe, it turned out Athens had its own burgeoning music scene, with The B-52’s in its fold. He maintains that their debut album, the eponymous The B-52’s still doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. “[It was] one of the most ground-breaking and influential records of all time – most certainly on me and everyone around the Athens scene,” Stipe explained. “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.”
Around the time he discovered the band, Stipe fell into another group of “nascent punk rockers” in Athens. He connected with Peter Buck, Billy Berry, and Mike Mills, and “that was the beginning of R.E.M”. At this point, they weren’t fully formed and had just started learning how to write cohesive songs. “We were toddlers,” admitted Stipe. “Not even toddlers, we were still pissing our diapers.”
Stipe has always been quick to credit the influence of The B-52’s and their willingness to travel to New York and come back to share their new musical discoveries. Stipe remembered them returning once and saying: “You gotta hear this unbelievable record by this band called Joy Division.” The B-52’s Pierson echoed Stipes’s compliments, telling Vulture: “Even though we don’t have the same aesthetic or groove, R.E.M. is such an Athens band to me. We have such a similar and entwined history. “
When they later collaborated, Pierson took ‘Shiny Happy People’ to be an ode to the legacy of her band. “It makes me so happy when I hear it,” she said. “I don’t know for sure, and I should’ve asked [Stipe], but it seemed to me like they were doing a little homage to the B-52’s, and that’s why they asked me to sing on the song. It’s very much in that direction. And then it became a hit, so they were a little bit miffed that it made it seem like that was their musical direction.”
