Performer: R.E.M.
Songwriters: Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe
Original Release: Life’s Rich Pageant
Year: 1986
Definitive Version: None
As you likely have determined from this list, I’m not very hip. If you want to know what’s the hot new music to listen to now, ask me in about 3 years. By then I’ll have found it.
That, in a nutshell, is my relationship with R.E.M. While everyone was finding and subsequently pledging allegiance to R.E.M., I was listening to The Who, ELP and Led Zeppelin—you know, bands that hadn’t done anything substantial in years. My first experience with R.E.M. was Superman, which struck me as nothing special. THIS is the band that everyone’s raving about? Whatever. So I missed the boat.
The closest I’ve come to being on top of things was 1992 when I found Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. At least there I was only a year or so behind the curve. I suppose it would make sense that that’s when I found R.E.M., and it was entirely by accident. I taped their MTV Unplugged show for my sister, and I ended up liking some of the songs, including this one.
Of course by then, everyone was into R.E.M., and the hipsters had already moved on to Radiohead, which I knew of but wouldn’t pledge allegiance to until—like everyone else—1998, but that’s a story for another time.
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