The song Michael Stipe admitted to stealing from Radiohead: “Holy fuck! I stole this”
There’s no real set date as to when alternative rock began. Some may point to the moment that Nirvana took over the mainstream, and some may go as far back to The Velvet Underground for the first time that alternative music started to get exposure in the same circles as big names like The Rolling Stones. In between both ends of rock history was R.E.M, but Michael Stipe wasn’t shy about wearing his influences on his sleeve when he openly stole from Radiohead.
By the time the college rock legends actually got famous, it was impossible to get a handle on what they were going on about. Stipe was never famous for enunciating properly, and the first handful of R.E.M projects have lyrics that feel incomprehensible half the time, almost like Stipe was trying to write without using any consonants.
Even if the lyrics weren’t anything special, the music was too good to ignore. There might not be a lot of connecting words in a song like ‘(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville’, but you’re going to be singing along to it from the first time you hear it.
While Stipe always limited the amount of time he spent in the spotlight, the mainstream ended up coming to them halfway through their career. Suddenly, the alternative kids from the 1980s had turned into superstars once grunge took over, making Stipe one of the most reluctant kings of rock when he began leading the next generation.
Stipe wasn’t concerned with dealing with success, but if he could help others deal with their own struggles, that would be the next best thing. Though the frontman regretted not getting in touch with Kurt Cobain in time before his death, he eventually worked his magic on Thom Yorke once Radiohead became famous, telling him to distance himself from his own celebrity with the words “I’m not here…This isn’t happening”.
Yorke would eventually take that advice to heart, shoehorning it into the song ‘How to Disappear Completely’, which sounds like all of the tension of being a rock star finally getting released in song. Stipe may have admired Radiohead from afar, but he also admitted to coming dangerously close to ripping them off a few years later on ‘Disappear’.
One of the standout tracks from their album Reveal, Stipe thought that the song was a bit too close to what Yorke had already done, telling NME, “We recorded it, we mixed it, and then I listened to it back and thought, ‘Holy fuck! I stole this from Radiohead. What do I do?’ Their song was ‘How to Disappear Completely,’ but I had written this thing. I called up Thom, really afraid, and said, ‘I don’t know what to do. I think I’ve stolen the song of yours’”.
After listening to it, Yorke ultimately gave his blessing, thinking that the song was far enough away from what they had done. Sure, there might be some digital effects added to the R.E.M song, but it feels much warmer than Radiohead’s take on the same subject, with the latter sounding like you’re walking through a cold wasteland with sighing strings echoing in the background.
On the other hand, would Stipe really be in the wrong if he tried to pull a fast one on the rock and roll legends? He had already come up with the one line that birthed the Radiohead song, so is it really possible for someone to plagiarise themselves?
