They Were Still Together?

Towards the end of the week, the band REM announced they were splitting as a group after 31 years together. Now, as musical acts go that is a very impressive run. I'm pretty sure most musical groups have broken up ten to twelve times in that span. Whatever measure you want to go by, they had a hell of a run. That being said, it just feels like this announcement came a few years too late. Honestly, I didn't even remember that they had an album come out this early year until I looked it up. It was almost as though the world retired them a while ago.

I'll admit, I never got really into REM. Like everyone else I enjoyed "End of the World As We Know It" (along with many of their other songs) and like 15 million other people I own a copy of "Out of Time". But I never got to the point a lot of other people reached where they thought the band was important. Entertaining? Sure. But, important? No. Later it began to feel as though the band was reading a little too many positive reviews about themselves. They started to take on this aura like every album they put out had to make some deep statement. And when you factor is that they rose to fame with a silly song like "Stand" it just makes the idea that this band was socially important all the more ridiculous. Of course, they aren't the first band which has felt this way and it's not entirely their fault. You can only have so many music critics blow smoke up your ass before you start to think you may actually walk on water (Hello, U2).

The bigger problem is that lately the music didn't justify the hype. You can be as pompous as you want while the music is good. But when it's just the same mediocre stuff album after album, bands start to take on the same feel as a show which is critically-acclaimed, but doing poorly in the ratings. They develop really annoying fans telling you that you simply must buy the new album. Well, anyone who knows me knows that now I'm not going to do it out of principle, and I feel like that is what happened here. Still, it was a hell of a run. I look forward to the reunion tour in a year.