Bookmarks: REM

If you have 20 minutes to spare, discover why REM's Out Of Time turned wasteful CD packaging into a solid piece of legislation. And what happened to the Longbox format. Pitch, the music podcast, explains all

What the pop papers say: Cold extras

Just flopped onto the doormat is this week's NME, with Noel Gallagher staring out of the cover. It looks like the same Noel Gallagher picture that always appears on the cover of the NME these days; indeed, it might appear on the cover of the paper every week.

As you try to avert your eyes - out of embarrassment and kindness rather than disgust, a strapline catches the attention:

REM Split: The original indie icons remembered

Original indie icons? Weren't they on IRS, and a major act, from the get-go? Surely they were college rock anyway?

It's surprising that the NME, which seldom misses a chance to run a Vox-style retriospective issue these days, chooses to stick REM on a strip on the top rather than making them the focus of the issue. Obviously, someone thinks that Noel Gallagher sells copies - although the frequency of Oasis covers and dwindling newsagent sales would contradict that - but a proper farewell to REM might have been a sign of some sort of coherent thought shaping the title. Instead, it's more congealing Noel, pushing a solo career that nobody really has any interest in.

Here's Noel talking about the video for the single:

[Russell Brand] is in it now...

Of course he bloody is.

... as some sort of crazed... well, you'll see it.

I wouldn't count on that.

He wears a top hat. It's fucking ridiculous.

A top hat, you say? A top hat? Why, the very idea of a long-haired comedian doing a cameo, in a pop video, wearing a top hat, is a hill-airy-oz idea. I can't imagine why nobody has done it before.

Noel tries to avoid giving an opinion on the "state of rock and roll" because "I'm 45 next year", which is amusing, given this is a cover story for the house journal of alt-rock. He does end up giving one, though. Of course he does:

There's bands that are good, make good records, but you see them on the telly at Glastonbury, and they're just not interested in having it

"Being interested in having it" being the key criteria in judging a band, rather than, you know, making good records. Who cares if the album is brilliant if the band don't punch each other on stage, eh?

Remember back in the early days of magazines arriving on the internet, Time Warner tried a crappy paywall idea where they printed a code in the print title which they hoped people would type in to a browser? Astonishingly, NME have revived the idea with something they're calling NME Extra.

Each edition has raffle-ticket style number printed on the front page - the one I got was 277205, if you're interested - which you input at nme.com/extra to get "special" content only available to people who have bought the magazine. Or copied a number off a front page in WH Smiths. Most of the stuff appears to be old articles from NME, which you would have thought should have been on the website anyway.

Still, there is some good stuff in the magazine. Most notably, Laura Snapes attempting to triangulate Marina Diamandis - she doesn't quite manage to, but that in itself is telling. You could buy the magazine to read it, or wait five years, and see if there's a magic code to type in so you can have a look online.

REM: The sidewinder sleeps tonight

Rather like the policies from the 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto, the big surprise about the REM split is that they were still officially supposed to exist.

Although they sometimes nudged a little too close to U2 for comfort, and the odd 'behaving like twonks on airplanes' incidents not withstanding, they did just about pull off being massive without being massive asshats.

Although imagine if they'd used Dead Letter Office as the end point of their career. Blimey, how much would we have loved them then?

Still, that's it for REM, although God has confirmed plans for a massive natural disaster in 2016 which will necessitate a reunion to headline a benefit gig. "The plans are at an early stage" explained God, "but I am developing a fire-breathing locust."

Helping Haiti: Damon offers a tune

Let's just absorb the announcement this morning that Simon Cowell's Downing Street-mandated Haiti single will feature JLS and Leona Lewis struggling against REM's Everybody Hurts (because if you've got a building fallen on your head, being told that everyone gets a bit upset at times will make you feel so much better).

Absorbed that? We're building a machine in our back garden that will measure just how toxic an idea has to get before the "it's for charity" goodwill protective cover rips to shreds.

A more interesting way to raise funds - albeit one that won't raise quite so much - comes from Damon Albarn, auctioning off a song. Yes, if you win the auction, he'll write a song all about.

Current bids stand at £770, which is a lot less than it cost Justine Frischmann - but she did get a whole album's worth.

Embed and breakfast man: Magnapop

Somehow, the return of Magnapop had passed me by - they'd vanished in 1999 with a contractual obligation to not use the name for seven years hanging over their heads; they'd re-emerged in 2005 and relifted the flag with Mouthfeel - which seems to have never got a UK release.

This year, there was another new album, Chase Park, which only got a digital release. I say "only" like the prospect of new material from Magnapop is ever going to be underwhelming, which is, of course, wrong.

But this story is getting itself round the wrong way - forgetting to mention the roots in that primordial soup of guitar bands, Athens, Georgia; the spell trading as Homemade Sister and Swell; demos produced by Michael Stipe; tour supports for Sugar and Juliana Hatfield and The Lemonheads. The ceaseless touring in the 90s and the big break that broke them, opening for REM on the Monster tour. The strains weren't helped when their record label collapsed.

But they were special - they are special, and have remained special in the intervening time.

And this is what they sound like:


More Magnapop informations
Magnapop official site
Magnapop on MySpace
Magnapop on Twitter

Buy Magnapop
Mouthfeel
Chase Park
Hot Boxing
Rubbing Doesn't Help

A little more Magnapop to come this weekend
Lay It Down
Skin Burns live
Open The Door

Liveblog: Michael Stipe on The One Show

Somewhat oddly, Michael Stipe is guesting on NuNationwide this evening.

Adrian Chiles - freshly back from Beijing - asks Stipe about the Olympic legacy in Atlanta: Have they forgotten about the Olympics?

"Yeah, pretty much... I know The rents went up and didn't come back down again..."

TVAM veteran and Tory teddybear hugger Giles Brandereth has delivered a report on rich people who give away their fortunes rather than pass the money on to their kids.

Christine Blakeley says how much she admires people who give money secretly; Giles says that entrepreneurs think their kids would be better off without anything. Adrian points out that giving away "all" but fifty million isn't really leaving yourself short, while Stipe looks awkward.

"I give away money but don't talk about it. I'm not a christian but I come from a Christian background and you don't talk about your philanthropy..."

"So, what do you give to?" asks Adrian.

Stipe vaguely says they do a lot here and there, before flashing up a photo of him and Bono. "We're great friends" says Stipe "and through him I've met people like Bill Gates."

They play a video to get Brandereth off the sofa; Chiles chides Stipe over an anti-TV line in the new single. "It's about our president" says Michael, explaining it's about GWB "desecrating" the memory of Martin Luther King.

Blakeley leads him into a few blandishments about Michelle Obama before pronouncing Barack "exceptional". "I think he's going to make it" to the White House "and it will be a better day for all of us."

There's some nice Old Grey Whistle Test clippage - "I remember that... I had hair - it covered the scars..."

"It doesn't take you long to get ready in the morning" chirrups Christine.

Adrian asks if the appetite is still there for touring - luckily, yes, says Michael. Who's here to sell tour tickets, of course. But this is all a lead-in to a piece by Phil Tuffnel on red sheep by the side of the M8.

Tuffers complains that most road statues are up north. Stipe is starting to look like he wishes they'd checked the programme before signing up to come on, as they show him some on the road pictures and ask him to comment: "do you shave all your head before you go on stage?"

Miranda thingy off Coast rolls round for her series on butterflies - "this is the bad boy of the butterfly world" warns Adrian. It's "the dreaded cabbage white", it turns out.

Michael Stipe is now blinking at the gardening woman who follows the film about how great cabbage whites are by saying that she squirts them.

I think he was trying to stay awake - he looks like he could quite easily drift off. Adrian makes a good attempt to include him in things - "would you like to sniff a budleia?" - before giving him a chance to plug the next date in Twickenham.

Michael doesn't have to play, though - they've got a tribute banned (called Stipe) in to do the honours. They do That's The End Of The Show As We Know It. Stipe looks like he hopes he looks like he's enjoying it.

And that's it... on with EastEnders.

Gordon in the morning: Telling lies

Gordon Smart is shocked today. Shocked. It turns out that people in showbusiness lie:

POP babe ANASTACIA has lied about her age for a decade, she confessed yesterday.

Poor Gordon must be startled. People making things up? It's hard to believe, isn't it?

It turns out that Anastacia is actually sixty-three.

Alright, not really. This making things up malarkey is clearly catching. She shaved four years off her age, which doesn't reflect incredibly well on her, but is hardly the greatest lie of all time. Gordon tries to work up some outrage:

She even kept up the fib when she fell ill with breast cancer at 35, claiming to be 31 — to give hope to other young sufferers.

This seems a little unfair - it's not like if you have breast cancer at 35 it's not cruelly young, is it? And it's a bit unfair to suggest she lied in order to "give hope" to younger cancer sufferers; she was already fibbing when she was diagnosed and, you'd guess, if you've just been told you've got cancer your first priority might not be correcting having shaved a few years off your CV.

Still, 'female entertainer lies a little about her age' is a massive story compared with one of Gordon's other scoops this morning:

ROCK giants REM went on stage hours after cops pulled a man’s body from the river outside their Manchester hotel yesterday.

Goodness - 'something unconnected happens near pop group; gig not cancelled'. It's a wonder Rebekah Wade wasn't breaking out the 75 point type.

REM head indoors

Blame it, if you like, on the rift that runs through the city, but REM have been forced to relocate their Cardiff gig from the Millennium Stadium:

Bob Gold, the band's European manager, told the BBC sales had not met expectations and it was decided it was better for the band and the audience to move into "a smaller, more intimate venue".

That 'more intimate' venue is Cardiff International Arena, so it's not like you're going to be at risk from Stipe knocking your pint over if he gets a bit jumpy.

EMI hires executive who, erm, doesn't buy music

It might be a wise move - hiring someone to run the digital strategy at a major label who doesn't actually buy new music. Or hears much of it. Kind of like Bernard Matthews hiring a vegetarian.

EMI has taken on Cory Ondrejka. Ondrejka was a co-founder of Second Life, which, if memory serves, was bit like Animal Crossing only one where Tom Nook stole all your money, and the museum was bought out by American Apparel to sell you pictures of clothes.

So, what's his explanation for having no apparent interest in new music? And, judging by his blog, it's no interest at all:

I neither buy nor hear much new music. Since 2000, I’ve only purchased 5 albums. Three by Rush (enough of my friends are Rush fans, so somebody reminds me when they release a new album), Pearl Jam’s "Pearl Jam" (I read a Rolling Stone review in an airport), and REM’s Accelerate (best Terry Gross interview on "Fresh Air" in months.)

Let's try not to picture those dinner parties where three-quarters of the guests are the sort of big Rush fan who would remind you to buy their albums.

So, the closest thing he's come to new music in nearly a decade is Pearl Jam. How come?

Well, obviously, he's as square as a cube.

No,no, he stresses: It's just he never comes across music in the right context:

Why not? I hear lots of new music I like – anything from the first couple seasons of Alias would work – but I never hear new music in the right context to buy it.

The first couple of seasons of Alias would be from 2001 and 2002, then, so Cory's idea of "new" harks back to a time when S Club 7 were number One.

You'll notice that having started out by saying he "neither buy[s] nor hear[s]" new music, and then claims that he does.

But what does he mean "not in the right context to buy it"?

When I listen to radio, I’m listening to NPR to catch up on the news. The good local music stores are all gone. When I’m working, I want to hear music I like, so I have a very low threshold for experimentation. Coworker’s iTunes shares provide a hint at something new, but DRM and the hassles of being on the wrong computer – working on a desktop when my music is on my phone and laptop – keep me from jumping onto the iTunes Music Store to make a purchase.

"The good local music stores are all gone" sobs a man who's bought five records so far this century. How would he even know?

And - for a man who created a world where we were supposedly all going to have avatars with enormous penises (sold separately) allowing us to live in polygon-mapped housing to find opening iTunes on his laptop and typing in a band name to be too much for him seems surprising. God alone knows how his Rush-loving friends manage to get him to buy the albums - presumably they have to handcuff and blindfold him and drive him to a Wal-Mart store?

Let's just pause a while: EMI have hired a man whose love of music is so weak, he really can't be arsed to track down a tune he might have heard a few hours earlier. A man who never wanders into the CD section of a store and get hit by the "ooh! I wonder if they've got anything by that band who were on Jimmy Kimmel the other night" bug. A man who has, apparently, never scribbled the name of a song down on a napkin and plugged it into Amazon the next day.

That's what we're all thinking. Cory, though, thinks we'd be thinking something else:

Note that none of this lack of purchasing is because I’m just torrenting stuff.

Good god, man, if you have trouble coping with iTunes being on a different computer to the one you're working on, it's no wonder you're not torrenting. To be honest, it's a surprise you can cope with blogging.

The problem is that connecting discovery of new music to the ability to own the music is completely jacked. Even when I knew I wanted something – Accelerate – I had the problem that I was traveling with my MacBook Air, so buying a CD was useless. I had never setup the iTMS on that computer and you would be amazed at how hard Apple has made that process. It’s like they don’t want to sell me music. Then, once I did remember all the passwords I needed, I couldn’t figure out whether the iTunes download was DRM free. So I went to Amazon, which was slightly easier and made it clear the download wasn’t broken via DRM.

"I couldn't figure out whether the iTunes download was DRM free." And you've been put in charge of digital strategy at EMI? You don't know the slightly more expensive downloads are the DRM free ones?

And, true, it's been a few years since I set up my iTunes account, but I don't recall it being especially tortuous.

Let's see...

Sign in...
new account...
set up password, set up reminder question...
then some credit card information - effectively, card type, number and billing address - and then that's more or less it.

Perhaps he's expecting Apple to somehow magically guess your credit card number?

It is incredibly frustrating. I want to be able to find new music. When I find new music, I’m happy to pay the artists for it. Once I own music, I want to be able to listen to it wherever I am. How hard can this be?

It's not hard at all - providing, of course, the files you've been sold are DRM free - your new employer is responsible for a lot of the DRM in the first place. Oh, and it's nice to see you believe that paying for music means you "own" it - you might find your new bosses are trying to make us view that as a somewhat antwacky attitude.

I'm all for making music easier to buy, easier to move about with, easier for us to take with us when we've paid it, and it's great that Cory wants that too. But his blog suggests a man who hasn't really thought much about music and buying and selling it because he's, frankly, not that bothered. Back in 2000, who would have thought "I'm not going to buy that song because I have a PC without a disc drive?" The idea might be to try and sell music to other people like him, people who won't buy music unless it's there with a single, press-red, buy-now button in front of their faces. But that sort of purchaser won't build careers; you need the customers who treat music as a passion to underpin what you do. And you can only sell to people with a passion if you feel that passion. If you don't care enough about music to seek it out in the era when tracking down a song has become so piss-easy, my cat has had to have his access to iTunes blocked in case he spends his entire allowance for the month online, you don't really have any feel for the product.

I presume Cory must have watched Alias as it broadcast - after all, buying a DVD box set would have been too tortuous, right?

Stipe is haunted by Kurt

Michael Stipe has trouble shaking off the blues when he tries to listen to Nirvana records:

"He had reached a point where he was about to push through to something that was so phenomenal and so beautiful.

"It was all written, it was all right there and it was so obvious where he was going, and then he didn’t make it.

"I still have trouble - I can’t listen to an entire Nirvana record."

Similarly, these days most people have trouble making it all the way through an REM album.

Something to listen to: REM SXSW NPR

NPR is hosting a full stream of REM's SXSW show.

[LINK FIXED - apologies]

First night: REM at SXSW

They had a new album to push - an album so modern, it's being streamed online, if you can imagine such a science-fiction concept. So, how did REM go down in Austin?

Like Elliot Spitzer at a Catholic Mother's Meeting.

Village Voice tried to be kind, but:

The songs are a bit louder, brasher, angrier, but still exploding into that sunny, boppy sort of R.E.M. chorus that's simultaneously recognizable and forgettable. The song bitching about Barbara Bush's post-Katrina Superdome quips is half-finished at best; "I'm Gonna DJ" is half-clever at worst. Michael Stipe these days is prone to corny non-sequitur exclamations -- "Hey!" "Whoa!" "Yeah!" -- amid his typical half-loopy, half-preachy banter: anti-war, pro-Obama (called that one), etc. He's endearing, but the band's flaccid, and the crowd is even worse, beaten down by New One after New One and barely perking up when the dudes deign to toss out "Drive" or "Fall on Me" or "Man on the Moon."

Austin360 couldn't even work out why they'd show up to a new band fest. Then it got it:

SXSW has become a recognizable youth culture brand. It's where old bands go to be young again.

Or to try, anyway. Did it work? MTV News' YouAreHere blogger Aaron Pinkston seemed impressed, charmed but not quite convinced:

I came to the show not being a huge fan of the band, just because they weren’t really part of my generation. However, with that said, leaving the show I definitely understand why the line to get in went for a mile down Red River Street. I was highly impressed by R.E.M.’s performance and definitely hope to one day see them perform again!

WNYC's Soundcheck blog liked what it heard, but...

R.E.M. bit into mostly new stuff, with an opener that was, well, heaven. I haven’t heard anything on the new album besides the single — and that’s a lot, mind you — but that first song sounded wonderful. New songs kept on coming, and I can’t wait to hear the new record. Sigh … I leave midway through the set to catch a ride, as we have another big Soundcheck on tap tomorrow.

... if it was that good, wouldn't you have stayed to the end?

The concert blog lists the set as played, while the merest glimpse of the band live has turned up on the YouTube:

REM likes iLike

The iLike music service - or LikeLastFM as it's sometimes called - has landed a profile-raising coup with a deal to offer a preview stream of REM's new album. It'll have an exclusive on streams of Accelerate from March 24th - officially until April 1st, but in reality for the first hour or so before someone rips the album and throws it onto peer-to-peer networks.

Go and see REM (take binoculars)

REM have announced a bunch of stadium dates this Summer. Here's where the sharp-eyed might be able to make out Michael Stipe jumping up and down:

August 24 - Lancashire County Cricket Club, Manchester
25 - Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
27 - Rosebowl, Southampton
30 - Twickenham, Twickenham

Please try and act surprised when they add an extra date in London, okay? Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday this week, and then through eBay about twelve seconds later. The cost? £45 before booking fees. Loyal to the Bank of America indeed.

Michael Stipe nips out of jury duty

Michael Stipe wasn't much interested in being considered part of peers of a man accused of sneaking into a High School:

Stipe told Clarke County Superior Court Judge Lawton Stephens on Monday he could not be fair and impartial in the case because he has been the target of stalkers and death threats, the Athens Banner-Herald reported.

Apparently, this was enough to get him off. Although I'm a little confused as to when being a victim of crime made you incapable of being on a jury, we're sure Stipe didn't make an excuse simply to avoid doing his duty.

Thom Yorke lets down Macca gently

Paul McCartney apparently asked Thom Yorke to do some work with him. Thom said 'no':

“My daughter was putting an album together and she put us in touch. I asked Thom to do a duet, but he said he couldn’t because he only felt happy working on his own and Radiohead’s material.”

Yes, that's true, that, Paul.

Here's Thom not feeling happy working with UNKLE:



Here's Mr. Yorke clearly uncomfortably collaborating with Bjork:



Thom Yorke obviously wasn't happy working with Drugstore, either:



There was no frisson of joy when Thom worked with REM:



Perhaps, Paul, it could just be that he didn't want to work with, well... you?

Chiefs of relief

The Kaiser Chiefs and REM have joined with a whole heap of other bands who've donated tracks to a New Orleans Musicians Fund download album.

Hopefully, it'll help keep the New Orleans musical community afloat until Michael Jackson can get that benefit single sorted.

REM: Pay to watch our practice

The music industry is always looking for new ways to squeeze a few quid out of people - but who knew that REM would come up with a new way of fleecing the audience: they're charging fans to watch them rehearse.

As the Guardian blog observes, while even a warming-up REM might be worth watching, it's a little bit alarming as a precedent - if, say, Dave Matthews sees Michael Stipe opening up this new revenue stream, how long will it be before there's a charge to watch his guitar tech putting towels on the amps?

[Ta again to James McCabe]

Dead Letter Office

It's like a spin-off from Fluxblog: Matthew has embarked on Pop Songs 07, an attempt to provide a blog entry for every song REM ever made. We can't wait until he gets to the one that's just Michael Stipe reading out the liner notes from an album he found in the studio.

Stipe plans to park tanks on Bono's lawn

Okay, we know Sir Bono of Bono is 73% Dutch these days, but even so, it's curious that REM have picked Dublin Olympia ("in the shadow of the U2 tower, like everything else in Dublin") for a residency honing down material for the next album. They'll play every night between June 30th and July 5th, except for the 2nd.