I bought a second hand tape that is a live recording of an R.E.M. concert, the label claimed October 2nd, 1984, in New Orleans. But a quick look on setlist fm proved that to be incorrect. I tried identifying all the songs in order on the tape but couldnt recognize some of them. Any one have any ideas what concert this actually was?

EDIT: FOUND IT! Its Boca Raton, Florida. Sptember 29th, 1984

This is a one-of-a-kind caricature drawn by two time Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist Mike Lukovich… With band autographs…

Interesting read that popped up on my phone. Apologies if this was already posted.

https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/r-e-m-guitarist-peter-buck-says-band-will-never-reform

I had always took for granted that the R.E.M. lyrics published online came from the band. But in a recent discussion of the lyrics to Sitting Still it was mentioned that Stipe didn’t remember the lyrics and used the lyrics published online during the Olympia concerts. Which got me wondering where these lyrics online actually came from, particularly the IRS albums. Anyone know?

Watching the World Cup final and they just played an NFL commercial at halftime. And the soundtrack for the commercial was It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).

First of all, huh? Second, has anyone ever heard REM used in a TV commercial before? Such an odd choice in 2026. Would REM have signed off on that? I don’t remember them selling control of their catalog rights away like a bunch of other older bands.

Hey I found this song on a bootleg cd my uncle got me, but he doesn't remember what the name was or where he found it online so he doesn't know either. if anyone can tell me it would be much appreciated

has to be my favourite song from these guys, it hits so unbelievably deep. it’s a really personal song for me and nothing comes close. instrumentation and lyrics are genuinely perfect

man do i love this band, what would we do without them!

My band played at an REM tribute show in Hyattsville Maryland last weekend. We were the first electric band after a few acoustic acts. I had just asked the sound person to turn up my guitar in the monitor. She sort of shrugged and then totally overdelivered. . .

https://youtube.com/shorts/Gu9miVDfOn8?feature=share

As Requested :)

me singing this every time I order lunch at Dig…

He's pretty definitive about the prospect of an R.E.M. reunion.

Just was looking at the lyrics online & the version of this song I’ve been singing for the last 40 years is a little different:

“Up to pry & Katie buys her kitchen sacks but not me &
Sitting’s not for love making, wasted time sitting still

I’m the sign and you can’t read
I’m the sun and you’re nocturnal
We could bind a nemesis!
We could gather throw a fit!”

Is either one of these the preferred version?

I have been listening to Out of Time a lot this week, really appreciating the depth and beauty on this album.

I find Out of Time to be an incredibly beautiful album that holds together really well despite being so varied. The songwriting is outstanding. It never comes out as a favourite album for me but that's only because they have so many others that top it. But it still really is incredibly good. I wonder if it gets overlooked because it's easy to let the biggest singles define it. Like most great albums, the singles feel different within the context of the whole album than as individual songs.

Michael Stipe said at the time that it was all love songs and he talked about the lack of “intelligent” love songs in pop culture. He's said in interviews much later on that they weren't really love songs, he just said that for something to say. But he had a point. I count 6 love songs on the track listing, which is loads for R.E.M. (By ‘love songs’ I mean songs that are about romantic love, but also sex, desire, affairs, so not necessarily *love* but non-platonic.)

Low, Country Feedback, Losing My Religion etc are not like many love songs you hear, either in 1991 or now, really. They are the opposite of pop songs full of (often very gendered) cliches. (Which can be fun! But never been a thing that R.E.M. does, which is probably why hearing them cover Superman throws me a bit every time I hear it, because to me it feels like exactly that type of song.)

The 60s influence is all over this album and that intrigues me too. I have read Stipe talking about how his education about sex and relationships when he was younger came from the spirit of the 60s, ‘free love’, and sex outside of the stigma and shame of previous decades… and then the 80s, AIDs, and Reagan happened and that all got ripped away from people who had only just got to experience it.

I have no idea if Stipe had any of this in his mind, consciously or otherwise, when he wrote these lyrics in response to the sound of that music. But that's what it makes me think about. Musically, it evokes the 60s, including the joyful sugary sounds, and then there's this sombre melancholy that hangs over it all, especially the Stipe lyrics. Even the upbeat shiny pop songs have a shadow hanging over them. It's like nostalgia for something that maybe was never real in the first place.

I don't mean to say that the songs literally are about any of that, but more that the sideways look sex and relationships against a backdrop of a very 60s sound might be where some of the yearning melancholy comes from.

(Thanks anyone who made it all the way down to the end of my middle of the night ramblings!).