REM - Up

REM is one of the quintessential 80s underground bands who made it big.

And they are everyone's either punchline if you were on the very, very punk side, or if you're one of the bands that wound up following the same pathway, they're the band you looked up to and idolized because they seem to have remained human forever.

through the whole the whole mess that they got themselves into

they made it through they made it out they made it big and

and they kind of got big on accident like they the the one i love was kind of a surprise hit and the one i love is on document and that's my shit i it's a great record love document and i think it's their strongest record like top to bottom um It's about four or five records in.

It's definitely rockier than this, like a lot more distorted guitars, a lot more aggressive.

And it's the peak of my favorite REM thing, which is if you give the song a political title, you can sing about whatever you want and people think you're like worldly and deep.

You can just sing about a bad date you had, but you give the song a title like, you know, gone to guatemala and everybody's like oh my god he's like he's so well-read they're

the

american clash Yeah, and they were kind of angling for some, like...

Maybe there could be two bands that matter, and one of them could be R.E.M. Is kind of what it felt like at times.

So they started out as basically a mumble pop band.

Yeah.

And...

Out of Athens, Georgia, along with the B-52s.

So they are the

college rock band.

Like, if college rock is a real

genre and not just a radio format, which, I mean, spoiler,

it's not, and it is.

But if it were a genre, they would be the dead center of that.

The platonic,

yes.

Take the steps to dash a rolling heart.

Yeah.