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.
Carlin’s narration is sympathetic but sometimes quietly undercuts the group’s self-presentation as 'quintessential outsiders,' ambivalent about their own ambition.
Carlin writes vividly and in close detail about the group’s formation and early days ... Carlin offers efficient biographical sketches of each band member, seeded throughout the book to break up the linear story of the group’s arc ... This longtime fan didn’t learn much new from The Name of This Band Is R.E.M., but it gets across all the fundamentals, with both affection and discernment. And if a fierce admirer thinks the band deserves a literary account that matches its own achievement, it’s hardly Carlin’s fault that music doesn’t easily lend itself to such triumphs on the page.
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.
