The unassuming songs that changed the way Michael Stipe wrote for REM: “I think they’re beautiful”
From the dorm rooms of the University of Georgia to world domination, REM had an unparalleled grip over alternative rock back in the 1980s and 1990s, and the lineage of Michael Stipe’s songwriting quality can still be felt in the modern alternative scene.
Triumphant records like Automatic for the People and Out of Time helped to define the American rock sound of the 1990s, offering an alternative to the prevailing abrasion of grunge and establishing REM among the few rock bands to break into the mainstream without compromising their artistic principles.
Throughout the decade, Stipe penned a plethora of iconic tracks, and there was never any dead wood or filler when it came to his work; every track had a staunch message and motivation, owing to the punk and new wave influences which inspired the group during their earliest days.
Even still, if you look back at REM’s early output and compare it to something like ‘Losing My Religion’ or ‘Orange Crush’, the difference is night and day. During their first steps into the music world, the band were far more abrasive and endearingly unpolished, typifying the kind of indie slacker rock which would come to dominate the American underground years later.
Tracing the trajectory from their inception in the mumblecore ‘Radio Free Europe’ to the 1990s hit anthems they became synonymous with, when did the band, and importantly, Stipe’s songwriting shift gears?
1986’s Lifes Rich Pageant is the best bridge between the choruses of these disparate REM eras. The Don Gehman-produced record saw them making a conscious effort to adapt and grow towards a more digestible and accessible aural landscape, which paved the path for their later, most commercially successful material under the guidance of producer Scott Litt.
Crucially, the core motivation for that sonic diversification came from Stipe himself. “I went through a very dark period during [the 1985 album] Fables. A year and a half—really hard,” he told The New Yorker back in 2021. “And I came out of that dark period with incredible clarity, which found its way into ‘I Believe’ and into ‘These Days’, really important songs to me.”
Both of those tracks feature on Lifes Rich Pageant, although it is fair to say that neither was a particular standout, both being passed over for single releases. However, the power of the songs, for Stipe, was how they opened up novel thinking for the band.
“I think they’re beautiful songs. I don’t think they’re the best thing I ever did, but, for me, those songs defined a new way of planting my feet on the ground, folding my arms across my chest, and saying, ‘I am here, I’m not fucking going anywhere, and I’m going to do the best I can,’” Stipe asserted.
That ardent defiance ushered in a bold new age for REM during the late 1980s and into the 1990s, an era which produced virtually all of their most successful and enduring material. In the grand scheme of the band’s discography, tracks like ‘These Days’ and ‘I Believe’ might easily have passed you by, but they formed the pivotal moment in which Stipe’s songwriting snowballed into something exciting and largely universal.
