By Chelsea Van Baalen/The Torch
chelseavanbaalen@lcctorch.com
This column goes out to a band I love.
R.E.M. announced its break-up last week and I, like most of the music industry, am still reeling from the news.
After surviving 31 years, 15 albums, dozens of singles and even losing a member, R.E.M. was a seemingly unstoppable alternative-rock force. Until they weren’t.
Framing what appears to be a cordial parting of the ways, Mike Mills said on the band’s website, “We have always been a band in the truest sense of the word. Brothers who truly love and respect each other. We feel kind of like pioneers in this — there’s no disharmony here, no falling-outs, no lawyers squaring-off. We’ve made this decision together, amicably and with each others’ best interests at heart. The time just feels right.”
But at what point is the timing right to end one of the most seminal, prolific bands of the century?
I should add that this is one fan’s opinion and that there’s a much bigger issue at work here.
Music lovers can wail on and on about their favorite band. It doesn’t matter if you listen to country, metal, pop or zydeco, you probably have a favorite band. And when that band ceases to exist, the new tracks stop being laid, the tour buses stop rolling into town, when that all goes away, why do we care?
For me, it’s not just that another band has broken up, it’s like pieces of my memories have just fractured.
I remember being 14 years old the first time I ever heard “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” I remember one year later and hating “Around the Sun” just like everyone else did, and immediately forgiving R.E.M. with 2008’s “Accelerate.” I remember watching the “Losing My Religion” video and thinking to myself, “Well, that’s weird.”
And when a band that creates so many memories breaks up, it feels as though we’ll stop making memories with them. Now, in order to see them live, I have to hold out for a reunion tour. When I play “Automatic for the People” for my way-off-in-the-future kids, I won’t be able to avoid the phrase “And then they broke up.”
Yet, at the same time, maybe some bands do need to just end. Look at The Rolling Stones. While most will compare them to The Beatles, they’re pictured as young Brits straight out of the ’70s. We wouldn’t have the same image watching old men on the verge of breaking their hip.
Do we even remember R.E.M. as the musicians they are today? Or have we put them in a musical snow globe, trapped in the swirling snow of their golden ’90s years?
