The Name of This Band is R.E.M. (revisited)

I finally finished The Name of This Band is R.E.M. and I give it a solid four stars out of five. Perhaps even 4 1/2 stars. It was a breezy read.

A sign of how consistent R.E.M. was during their recording career is that I found myself constantly thinking, "oh, he's gonna talk about Fables!" "Oh, he's gonna talk about Pageant!" "Oh, he's gonna talk about Document!" ...and on and on. With the exception of Around the Sun, the band never released a sub-par album, and I wanted to read what Peter Ames Carlin had to say about all of them. He's a good insightful writer.

R.E.M. were, by and large, well-behaved lads and have rarely let their private lives go public. Consequently, there is little in the way of salaciousness that one would find in a book about, say, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, or--for that matter--R.E.M. contemporaries like--say--Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, or any number of hair metal bands. The craziest story is the time in 2001 when Peter Buck mixed sleeping pills with wine and was beligerent on a trans-Atlantic flight. Peter had no memory of the incident, felt appalled about his behavior, and was acquitted of all charges. (I'll spare you a blow-by-blow account).

As a result of reading this book, I'm digging out my R.E.M. CDs (and, when I get a chance to play records, my LPs) and enjoying them all over again. Lifes Rich Pageant will always be my "go-to," but it's been particularly rewarding to dig out their last two albums, Accelerate and Collapse Into Now, which all have good stuff on them that I didn't fully appreciate at the time.