from Hacker News

What happened when REM went mainstream

by johnshades on 2/17/25, 6:36 PM with 86 comments

  • by harry8 on 2/17/25, 9:15 PM

    Way back when, the big story about REM was that the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, wanted “It’s the end of the world” for his advertising blitz for windows 95. REM, they said, told him to take a hike so he had to settle for the Rolling Stones “Start Me Up” instead. Windows 95 was culturally pretty big.

    Turning down a very large sum of money suggests you believe something in a way that simply lecturing others doesn’t.

    I don’t know what the members of REM believe, probably not all the same thing. But whatever it is, maybe they do really believe it. That counts for something. Contrast Mick Jagger & Keith Richards.

  • by freetime2 on 2/17/25, 8:11 PM

    > Not since the Muzak corporation has there been an institution that soundtracks drugstores, supermarkets, and shopping malls more readily than R.E.M.

    Wondering if other people agree with this? Because it doesn’t really match my experience at all. I wouldn’t say I’ve heard REM in stores often enough for them to be noteworthy in that regard, much less infamous.

  • by tptacek on 2/17/25, 7:53 PM

    Your Nirvanas and Pavements and Radioheads—behemoth alt-rock bands that seem to be endlessly rediscovered by newer generations as a source of credibility—have kept their cultural capital, while R.E.M. remains marooned in Alternative Muzak-land.

    The irony of this being published in The Yale Review is too much for me. If REM had stopped after Reckoning the way Television did after Adventure, the only way anyone would be able to talk about them would be in hushed reverential tones. The article scoffs at the notion of "selling out", but then tells a story of an esteemed band doing exactly that, and the inevitable outcome, of "Losing My Religion" playing in the background at every supermarket.

    (For calibration purposes: Murmur is a top 5 album for me, and my top 5 REM albums would include Automatic).

  • by ithkuil on 2/17/25, 7:49 PM

    A few minutes ago I picked up a dusty CD at random, after possibly multiple years of not listening to my CD collection. It was a REM album.

    Then I open HN and I see this title. Serendipity

  • by fumar on 2/17/25, 7:24 PM

    As an elder millennial, I like early REM. I can place them on the alt indie history timeline. Yet unlike sonic youth or pavement or my bloody valentine, REM made it well into top 40 territory. I don’t have a strong attachment to the band. Compared to Radiohead or Interpol who seem to be engrained in my core memories. I don’t know if college aged people today have major exposure to music from 98-2008.

  • by fallinditch on 2/17/25, 7:19 PM

    "My father gave me Monster a week after buying it, calling it “the most pretentious piece of shit I’ve ever heard.” This is funny because the whole point of Monster was a shot at unpretentiousness." [1]

    I never got into REM, I preferred The Fall, The The, The Smiths, Pixies, Pavement.

    [1] https://www.treblezine.com/out-of-time-r-e-m-s-generation-ga...

  • by sosogroovy on 2/17/25, 7:49 PM

    This is a really good synopsys, not too fawning, not too critical. REM was an early college band that was sincere and handled pop fame with tact and restraint (counterpoint: U2, of the same era). They sort of did exactly what a "normal" band should do: write music, find fans, expose people to a new style of music, become very popular, don't try to push it past the cultural shifts, and gracefully exit without any scandal are smarminess. Who does that anymore, or even gets the chance? I think the only bummer is that they influenced so many alt musicians that their style is in everything non-pop these days.

    Of course, I'm pretty biased, though: I was a senior in highschool when the day after REM played my city half my graduating class was wearing the concert shirt.

  • by relaxing on 2/17/25, 7:17 PM

    Can’t comment on the Microsoft comment below since it’s dead, but… I wonder if there’s parallels to be drawn…

    Gates and Allen went from Harvard to being founders in Albuquerque in ‘75 to Seattle ‘79 and becoming a corporate behemoth. Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe went from the University of Georgia in ‘80, bootstrapping their first record then signing with IRS records in ‘82, to being a corporate behemoth under Warner in ‘88. And if their first ~$10M Warner deal was a seed round, their next $80M deal was an exit.

  • by autoexec on 2/17/25, 7:06 PM

    > But if it once was (or still is) alternative, one might then ask: Alternative to what?

    One might ask that, but not if one were very smart. "Alternative" was the dumping ground for anything not playing on the weekly top-40, rap, country, or oldies channels. It's a useless genre

    On any given day you could turn the radio to the "alternative" channel and have almost no expectation at all as to what kind of music you'd hear. In that sense REM is perfect for the genre, because their sound changed so much from album to album.

    These are all alternative songs, all of which played on the alternative radio stations alongside REM, but good luck finding any kind of common thread beyond "there's usually a guitar involved":

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IqH3uliwJY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt5EHAqhR1c

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAdLskQtWo8

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PDlGUdDF8Y

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPjPb3nNprg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBFXFzqIjHM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GCrzjVdmSg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzUnqr1t7yI

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m39DWVFK-Bw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDK-wsdEhNE

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ejga4kJUts