R.E.M. - Remember Every Moment

[fireflykid]

Anyone who knows me beyond general acquaintance knows my favorite band is R.E.M. While it’s certainly a bit childish to carry “favorites” well into adulthood, there was always much more beyond the music that fascinated me where this band was concerned. They activated an obsessive compulsion in me that I’d never experienced before. Essentially, R.E.

Comments

[jagreen79]

Great remembrance, man. It seems so bizarre that anyone could ever hate music, but then, I have memories from as far back as 3 years old sitting with a tiny boombox behind the rocking chair in my bedroom, listening to the Beatles over and over and over again. They were my drug.

R.E.M. came much later, and in all honesty, I completely hated them. I was a weird little metal kid, and I heard "Stand" and it just seemed like the dopiest, stupidest, poppiest crap I could ever imagine. It wasn't 'til a few years later when, riding around in my brother's car on the way to school, he put in "Fables of the Reconstruction." That opening for "Feeling Gravitys Pull," that "beer-neer-neer, beer-neer-neer, ner-ner-ner, dun-ducka-ducka-duck-bow! dun-ducka-ducka-duck-bow!", that was DARK. I understood it. Not too long after that, of course, Nirvana and Pearl Jam came along and blew the doors off of my musical hesitations and made me revel in damn near everything. I don't think I actually owned an R.E.M. record until much later, probably early college when I bought a copy of "Fables" on vinyl (the same day I bought my first Husker Du record, actually), but within months I was a full on fanatic and owned everything they ever did.

I'll miss the band greatly just because I think they "Collapse Into Now" proved they had the potential to still be great, but I'm glad they're leaving on their own terms.

[fireflykid]

My musical hatred was only a short span of time - maybe five years - and it was engendered by the awful, awful cock rock of the day. Previous to that I was either indifferent or uninformed.