There have been a number of really good books written about R.E.M. and the wildly creative Athens music scene of the 1980s and ‘90s. They include Rodger Lyle Brown’s 1991 fly-on-the-wall account, “Party Out of Bounds” (UGA Press, $25.95), and Grace Elizabeth Hale’s more recent “Cool Town” (University of North Carolina Press, $27) from 2020.
But for the definitive and highly engaging, soup-to-nuts telling of R.E.M.’s story, look no further than Peter Ames Carlin’s “The Name of This Band is R.E.M.” (Doubleday Books, $32).
Carlin is the bestselling author of “Paul McCartney: A Life,” “Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon” and “Bruce,” the biography of Bruce Springsteen. To craft this fascinating account of R.E.M.’s evolution from college kids to reticent rock stars to individuals pursuing independent projects, he draws from a laundry list of books, articles, movies and interviews (though none with the band’s former members).
Fans who date back to the early alt-rock, college radio days of the ‘80s will revel in the nostalgia of the band’s origins. It starts with singer Michael Stipe, of course, the son of a Vietnam vet who spent his teen years reading the Village Voice and shadowcasting “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” screenings.
Stipe was in his first semester of art school at the University of Georgia when he met guitarist Peter Buck, a Wuxtry Records store clerk. Together they met drummer Bill Berry, who introduced them to bass and keyboard player Mike Mills, who had a habit of making bad first impressions.
Carlin’s description of the band’s first live performance in 1980 at Kathleen O’Brien’s birthday party inside the jam-packed sanctuary of an abandoned church (accessible only through a hole in a closet wall) shimmers with the heady, iconoclastic, anything-goes vibe of that time and place. It is a pure delight to read.
As Carlin traces the trajectory of the band’s career, it comes as a bit of a shock to be reminded how swift their rise to dominance was within the indie rock realm.
Where many a rock biography takes a downward spiral into self-destructive pursuits, R.E.M.’s story does the opposite. After years of avoiding any whiff of a star turn, the band left their small record label, signed with Warner Bros. in 1988 and began playing sports arenas. That caused a schism in their fan base between those who thought the band sold out and the millions of new fans who were just discovering them.
But according to Carlin, the band’s best was yet to come: Grammy Awards and chart-topping hits followed because the band evolved musically and gained a social conscience. As he told the Los Angeles Times, “the bigger they became, the more relevant they became.”
Carlin’s attention to detail and focus on the unique characteristics of the band members, the alchemy created by their collaboration and the wholly original, era-defining sound they produced makes “The Name of This Band is R.E.M.” required reading for any fan of the band.
In the running: Georgia author Taylor Brown’s historical novel “Rednecks” (St. Martin’s Press, $29), about the bloody battle to unionize Appalachian coal miners in the 1920s, is nominated for the 2025 Southern Book Prize in fiction.
Nominees are selected by members of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, and winners are chosen by readers via online ballot.
Other nominees in the fiction category are “James” by Percival Everett, “Shae” by Mesha Maren, “Tell It to Me Singing” by Tita Ramirez, “Haunted Ever After” by Jen DeLuca and “When the Jessamine Grows” by Donna Everhart.
Prizes are also awarded in the categories of nonfiction and young readers. For a full list of nominees and to vote, go to thesouthernbooksellerreview.org.
Suzanne Van Atten is a book critic and contributing editor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She may be reached at Suzanne.VanAtten@ajc.com.
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