[ed. For those of you who missed our Saturday Night Mix, here is R.E.M. Wolves, Lower.]by Christopher Bollen
Earlier this year, Michael Stipe turned 51, and his band, R.E.M., released its 15th full-length album, Collapse Into Now (Warner Bros.). I highly doubt that there was ever a time in American culture when youth wasn't worshiped and the new preferred. But Stipe might be the American independent culture's only certifiable rock legend-so original and imitable that no similar career comparison can be found in the arts-who is actually still in the process of defining what that legend is. Of course, Stipe has always been about eliding genres and confounding expectations. Along with his band members Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry (who retired from the group in 1997), Stipe has built an American band with an American sound that has arguably been one of the most successful among American audiences in the past 30 years, seemingly by inventing a new type of music from scratch: It's poetic; it ranges from manic melancholy to post-apocalyptic hope; the lyrics and choruses (when there are any) resist glib, sentimental, or cloyingly defiant clichés and yet remain in the head for decades.
Ever since R.E.M. was founded in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 and ushered in a radical, grassroots-youth alternative choice to mainstream pop, the group has been the real thing. Today, the most successful pop acts instantly sign promotional deals and include product placement in their music videos while singing about rebellion. There is hardly a mention now of "selling-out" because the music industry is more desperate than ever to be sold. But early on, Stipe and his bandmates made a commitment never to let their music be used to sell merchandise. Instead they've lent their talents to a number of causes throughout the decades-from local politics to global environmental initiatives. But the real surprise about the unlikely super-career of Stipe is that he isn't being asked to perform the hits from the heyday of his first albums. Collapse Into Now, with its propulsive yet restrained momentum, its lyrical gift of making the listener want to dance and cry at the same time, and its experiments with new sounds, is being described as one of the most powerful albums that R.E.M. has made in years. Yes, that means 31 years into existence, R.E.M. is making new music, their best music, going-forward-and-exploring music. R.E.M. has also teamed up with a collection of artists and filmmakers to create "art films" that accompany each song, providing a richer idea of the album for the YouTube generation. Stipe, of course, has always been involved in the art world (and is an artist in his own right), and R.E.M.'s collaborators on the films include Sophie Calle and Sam Taylor-Wood (who shot her own fiancé, the actor Aaron Johnson, dancing through the streets of London for the song "üBerlin"), as well as James Franco and Jem Cohen. But what is perhaps most amazing about Stipe is that though he has been famous for 30 years, he has still managed to remain something of a mystery. That fact might be the most triumphant. He has stayed human.
In early March, we sat down at his kitchen counter in downtown New York City over sushi to talk about his career.
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