Fans of , the ultimate college rock band that eventually transcended boundaries by signing to a major label and releasing multi-platinum albums, didn’t expect today’s shocking announcement, that the band is “calling it a day.”
Coming off the excellent “Accelerate” in 2008 and the above-average “Collapes Into Now” earlier this year, R.E.M. wrote on its website this morning that the group is over and out.
“To our fans and friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band,” the band wrote at remhq.com. “We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.”
R.E.M.’s early output was unparalleled via thoughtful releases “Murmur,” “Life’s Rich Pageant” and “Document.” Its successful mid-period had the band all over FM radio and large amphitheaters via the celebrated releases “Green,” “Out of Time,” “Automatic For the People” and “Monster.”
In recent years, R.E.M. has released a series of hit-or-miss LPs that showed an aging and somewhat disparate band – after they lost longtime drummer Bill Berry while touring 1995’s “Monster” to a near-fatal brain aneurysm. Individual songs will be remembered from the band’s late period –- including “Daysleeper” from “Up,” “Supernatural Superserious” from “Accelerate” and a handful of others –- but the band will best remembered for its pre-1995 releases, some of which defined an entire era of rock ’n’ roll.
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Ricardo Baca is the founder and executive editor of , the co-founder of The UMS and an award-winning critic and journalist at The Denver Post.
