I’m an ‘Old Person’—and Still Listening to R.E.M.

In the summer of 1988, back when MTV still played videos, the channel ran a short promotional ad for its slate of alternative music, a genre growing in popularity but safely outside the mainstream and relegated to late Sunday night shows like “120 Minutes.”

The spot featured a young man and a young woman—with pure Gen X “we don't give a fuck” attitude on display—talking up the alt-rock scene. They take turns noting how a fresh crop of “high energy” artists was providing “new ideas, a new spark,” and as they speak, album covers from said artists flash across the screen.

It closes with the young man proclaiming, “When I’m an old person, I think I’ll still be listening to R.E.M.”

Somehow, the 30-second clip lives on YouTube, and it kicks off this blog:

R.E.M., of course, is the Athens, Ga.-based rock quartet that formed in 1980 and surged to the forefront of alt and college rock with a new style of music that was both modern and tinged with a sound from some distant, bygone era.

I became a fan of the band around 14 or 15, so when 17-year-old me saw that MTV clip a few years later, the long-haired dude’s declaration struck a proverbial chord.

“Hell, yeah,” I remember thinking at the time. “When I’m an old person, I’ll still be listening to R.E.M., too!”

Turns out, I was right. Because almost four decades later, I’m now an old man—OK, “middle-aged man” is more accurate—and not only do I listen to R.E.M., but I listen to them a lot. So much so that they are on my musical Mount Rushmore with several other artists I’ve celebrated on this blog.

Why did R.E.M.’s music enrapture me as a teen? And why does it continue to resonate now? My latest for “A Fan’s Notes” documents it all.

Much like my introduction to the Smiths, a band I wrote about last year, I don’t remember exactly when or where I first heard R.E.M., nor do I recall who pointed me in their direction. All I know is it happened in the mid-1980s during my freshman year at Ridgeway High School in Memphis.

At the time, R.E.M. was only a few albums into what became a long and illustrious career, culminating in a 2007 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I was hooked after hearing just a couple of tracks.

The band’s members—Michael Stipe on lead vocals, Peter Buck on guitar, Mike Mills on bass and backing vocals, and Bill Berry on drums—concocted a perfect blend of cryptic lyrics, powerful vocals, beautiful harmonies, jangly guitar licks, and precise rhythm.

R.E.M. was equal parts cool, arty, and nerdy. I liked to imagine I could relate to all three elements, but it was lamentably only the latter.

In R.E.M., as with the Smiths, I found a band that refused to make formulaic, boring, or manufactured music. Renowned for abstract, literary lyrics and a unique sound influenced by several genres, R.E.M. defied the standard pop fare of the day.

This wasn’t Madonna or Michael Jackson, Wham! or Whitney Houston. This was something very different and much less commercial. It had heart. It had soul. It had underground college cred.

Yes, they later produced big hits and became global superstars, but for me, R.E.M.’s music was all deep cuts, all the time, as evidenced by the playlist below of my 40 favorite songs.

As someone starting to connect with music on a more meaningful level than a catchy chorus or slick video, I was moved by everything R.E.M. had to offer, from Stipe’s instantly recognizable voice to the band’s signature sound to their off-the-wall aesthetic.

I also felt a connection to their fan base, which consisted of high-brow music lovers who wouldn’t settle for anything less than the band’s weird way of looking at the world, be it songs about strange places (“Texarkana”), quirky characters (“Wendell Gee”), odd tasks (“Gardening at Night”), or life-changing rites of passages (“Losing My Religion”).

Over time, I viewed R.E.M. as a Fab Four of sorts for Gen X. To many of us, they were our Beatles, our everything. Because in this fan’s opinion, every album they released during my teenage years and into my early 20s was brilliant.

My R.E.M. fanaticism began around the release of two early albums—“Fables of the Reconstruction” in 1985 and “Life’s Rich Pageant” in 1986. I still consider these records their best offerings amid an astonishing canon that kicked off with their first LP, “Murmur.”

Released in 1983, “Murmur” ranks as one of rock music’s best debuts of all time, and their second full-length album, “Reckoning” (1984), is equally solid.

R.E.M. also released several hidden gems and obscure recordings only a diehard could love. There was the EP “Chronic Town” (1982), which showcases the band’s early talent, and “Dead Letter Office” (1987), a collection of covers, outtakes, and B-sides.

“Voice of Harold,” from the latter, is particularly masterful and reflective of their willingness to take chances and, I guess, just be weird. It’s a musical remake of the fantastic song “Seven Chinese Brothers“ but with Stipe reading the liner notes from a gospel album rather than the proper lyrics. It’s a song of pure delight.

In 1987, R.E.M. released “Document,” an album I was lukewarm about at the time but which sounds fantastic today and which prompted Rolling Stone Magazine to name them “America’s best rock & roll band.”

Their next album, “Green” (1988), would prove to be pivotal for several reasons. One, it marked their move away from the smaller, independent label IRS Records to the much larger, mainstream label Warner Bros., which some OG fans lamented even though—perhaps, because—it gave the band a broader audience.

And two, on a personal note, it allowed me to see them live. In March 1989, the spring of my senior year of high school, R.E.M. toured the U.S. to support “Green,” and I attended their stop at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis with several friends. Here’s the setlist from that show, which still ranks among my favorite concerts ever.

Seeing an R.E.M. show was a dream come true after several years of listening to them on tape, whether on my Walkman or blasting their tapes in the car while driving around town with my friends and fellow fanatics.

This music marked many milestones throughout my teenage years and became part of the soundtrack of my youth. I loved singing along, too, but as any true fan knows, that wasn’t always easy.

For the blog’s younger readers, when an artist released a new album in the 1980s, it was a very different experience than it is today. For one thing, you bought a physical copy, which, for most of that decade, meant buying a cassette tape.

When you peeled off the clear plastic wrapping, the tape inside had an artificial but pleasant smell, and the paper liner felt crisp in your fingers. Unfurling those liner notes to discover band photos and the lyrics printed inside was a joyous tactile experience that MP3 files can’t deliver.

R.E.M. fans weren’t so lucky. The band was notorious for not publishing the words to their songs, which wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world except that Stipe was notorious for obfuscating his vocals, so it was damn near impossible to understand everything he sang.

The track’s chorus? Sure. A verse or two? Definitely. But that was it. So, we’d pop R.E.M. into the tape deck and do our best to mimic Stipe, which often meant humming over or skipping passages we couldn’t decipher.

It didn’t matter. The music was perfect, and we connected with it even through mumbled lyrics and misunderstood lines. To show you what I mean about both things—namely, the perfection of their sound—I’ve included below my favorite R.E.M. songs.

• “Fall on Me,” from “Life’s Rich Pageant,” is a song about acid rain that includes what I believe are Mills’ best harmonies:

• “Driver 8,” from “Fables of the Reconstruction,” includes one of my all-time favorite and random lyrics: “The power lines have floaters so the airplanes won’t get snagged” (fast forward to about 49 seconds to start the song):

• “So. Central Rain,” with its brilliant opening riff, is my favorite track from “Reckoning”:

• “Swan Swan H,” a superb deep cut from “Life’s Rich Pageant,” is a Civil War-inspired tune that ranks as my favorite acoustic R.E.M. song:

• “I Believe,” also from “Life’s Rich Pageant,” got a resurgence—and a new video treatment—during the 2024 presidential election (Stipe was a vocal supporter of Kamala Harris and remains outspoken on many political and social issues):

• And “Find the River“ is the most beautiful of all the fabulous tunes on “Automatic for the People”:

These songs are just a sampling of the band’s impressive oeuvre. I could go on, and on, and on.

During college, R.E.M. released two more stellar albums, “Out of Time” (1991) and “Automatic for the People” (1992), which launched the band into the stratosphere thanks to several major chart toppers like “Losing My Religion,” “Man on the Moon,” and “Everybody Hurts.”

But the period after those albums marked a shift in my fanaticism. The band made good music from the mid-90s until they broke up in 2011, and I enjoy select songs from their later period, but my love for R.E.M., in many ways, froze in time when I graduated from college in 1993.

I didn’t connect with their newer offerings—those released in 1994 and later—so almost everything I listen to today is from “Chronic Town” until “Automatic for the People.”

That stretch is better than most bands’ entire catalog, and the songs still sound fresh all these years later.

I often text with my good friend Todd Nations—another superfan who has been covering R.E.M. songs with his bands since high school—about their music as if we’re discovering it for the first time.

The beauty of R.E.M. is it often feels like that.

In 2007, R.E.M. made it into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It was an appropriate recognition for a band whose influence was far-reaching, well beyond anything I could’ve imagined as a young fan back in the day.

During the ceremony in New York, Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder had the honor of inducting the band. Here’s the full video, but I’ve pasted below one snippet of his captivating speech:

“R.E.M.’s music is truly all-encompassing. They’ve used every color on the palette, they’ve invented colors on their own, they’ve painted this huge mural of music and sound and emotion as big as buildings.” –Eddie Vedder

Well, shit. Vedder did a better job explaining R.E.M.’s impact in 33 words than I did in 2,000. But his comment also provides a segue to my final thought on this band, which has played such a pivotal role in my life.

A few weeks ago, I saw that an R.E.M. tribute band led by actor Michael Shannon and musician Jason Narducy was coming to Denver to perform “Life’s Rich Pageant” in celebration of the album’s 40th anniversary. I bought tickets the moment they went on sale.

No, it’s not R.E.M.’s original members, but I’ll get to experience the music in person with other like-minded fanatics who, perhaps, also consider the band an essential part of their persona.

The upcoming show—like this blog I’ve been writing for several weeks or the time I spend listening to R.E.M.’s music daily—will be another way to keep their spirit alive, to keep enjoying the array of colors they brought into my life.

It will be a reminder that my reaction to that MTV promo clip all those years ago was spot on. Because I’m still listening to R.E.M.—and I know I’ll be a fan no matter how old I am.