The covers pay tribute to influences both hip (their Athens post-punk predecessors Pylon, three different Velvet Underground classics) and not-so-hip (Aerosmith, a drunken take on Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”). The album is a revealing, often charmingly unpolished and lighthearted look behind the curtain at R.E.M., at a time when they were considered a mysterious and even humorless band. Four months before the band’s last proper indie album, Document, the label released Dead Letter Office, a compilation of B-sides and non-album tracks like “Windout,” R.E.M.’s brief contribution to the Tom Hanks sex comedy Bachelor Party. Records must have seen the writing on the wall that R.E.M., who was becoming too big for the label, would soon make a move to the majors.
So let’s take a look back at R.E.M.’s discography, figuring out where Chronic Town belongs among the band’s full-length albums. 19 to celebrate its 40th anniversary - debuting as a standalone CD, with new liner notes from producer Mitch Easter. Their debut EP, 1982’s Chronic Town, is being reissued on Aug. But when the band finally disbanded in 2011, they left behind one of alternative rock’s most important catalogs, including 15 restlessly adventurous LPs. Their ascent was remarkable: Each of the quartet’s first nine albums sold as much or more than the one before, turning them into household names in the ’90s.īerry’s retirement in 1997 marked the end of R.E.M.’s classic era, but the remaining trio carried on, recording five more albums that earned mixed reviews. worked up a jangly yet esoteric sound – equal parts Velvet Underground and The Byrds - that quickly became their signature. Joined by the rhythm section of Bill Berry and Mike Mills, R.E.M.
Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in an Athens, Georgia record store in January 1980, and that fortuitous moment spawned one of the defining ‘80s bands.
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