R.E.M.

American rock group
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Quick Facts
Date:
1980 - 2011

R.E.M., American rock group, the quintessential college rock band of the 1980s. The members were lead singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and drummer Bill Berry. R.E.M., named for a dream-state condition (rapid eye movement), formed in 1980 in Athens, Georgia, a university town about 65 miles (105 km) northeast of Atlanta that was already internationally noted for its local pop scene by the time R.E.M. released Chronic Town, its 1982 debut extended-play recording. Stipe, obsessed with his own passions and hatreds, was a rounded tenor who draped vague words in sonically reassuring cadences, and Buck, with ...(100 of 709 words)