A poetic meditation on what made so many of the band’s songs stand out, and continue to shine ... Carlin’s book offers plenty of behind the scenes details and trivia about R.E.M.'s rise ... Fascinating.
Sensitive and well-made ... Makes for sometimes dull reading ... R.E.M.’s music does for me what it always has — it adds a shivery sense of the mythic to the ordinary and everyday. And it still sounds good loud.
Though never pinpointing the reasons for the explosive, major-label success of a rebellious band, which ostensibly distrusted corporate rock, Carlin assembles a solid, much-needed narrative of one of the major alternative rock bands.
By the book’s end, the band still feels somewhat unknowable, and Carlin doesn’t explore their legacy following their (amicable) 2011 breakup. They started out strange and hard to interpret—and still are. A well-researched but by-the-numbers biography.
