REM’s Michael Stipe on the most groundbreaking record: “It was just fucking scorched earth”
Part of what made REM so successful in the beginning was that they were different.
But when you look, really look at why this was, it all makes sense. Unlike some that emerged at the same time, REM weren’t necessarily trying to be different, at least not in a way that felt inauthentic or tryhard. Because while they channelled specific parts of rock, underground and even punk, a lot of what they had to say came from somewhere more local, in Athens, Georgia.
Learning all about the tricks of innovation from groups like The B-52’s, Michael Stipe had a somewhat unusual exposure to some of his favourite music in his community. He found out firsthand that it wasn’t usually about what was popular and why, but what was popular because it was different, and what stood out without any rhyme or reason other than the fact that it felt important.
When he first heard The Beatles, for example, it was the German version of ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, though it didn’t hit any less. All he remembers is wondering what on earth he was listening to, not that it was in a different language, or from a group he hadn’t heard before. It pulled him in emotionally. And that, above all, was the kind of musician he set out to be, not a copy of everything that came before.
And so with The B-52’s, it wasn’t just that they turned him on to something that felt so inherently different to everything else. It was the way they ultimately shaped everything about REM, from the music scene that Stipe became a part of to the music he wanted to make. Stipe had actually returned to Athens dripping in punk influences. He lived with a punk band in East St. Louis and had this impression of Athens being “this very small college town full of hippies and granola”.
To him, it was just another boring place that had nothing for a punk rocker like him. But when he moved back, there was this entire underground subculture with The B-52’s at the helm, and it was the first time he realised, this is where it’s at. Specifically, it was their debut album that opened his eyes.
“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,” he told Pitchfork.
Continuing, “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.”
While it would be punk leaders like Patti Smith who would later mentor REM, Stipe’s push came from a place of being more musically open-minded, his world opening up to possibilities beyond his punk circle.
Stipe also met Peter Buck around this time, and that was the official beginning of REM. Because although he had worried that Athens was where musicians went to die, everything about it quickly turned out to be quite the opposite. Like the way The B-52’s showed him what real courage meant. And how they’d return from places like New York every now and then, a Joy Division record in hand, telling him all about what people were really listening to, what they were actually interested in. Where the real magic was.
