R.E.M

R.E.M. is an American college rock band formed in Athens, Georgia in early 1980s by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist/keyboard player Mike Mills, and vocalist Michael Stipe. Berry left the band after suffering a brain aneurysm on the Monster tour. He is now a farmer.

Although "R.E.M." can stand for "Rapid Eye Movement", which is a certain stage during a person's nightly sleep, it does not have this meaning when referring to the band.

Throughout the 1980s, the band worked relentlessly, releasing records every year from their debut album Murmur in 1983 through Green in 1988. Alongside this hectic recording schedule, R.E.M. toured constantly, playing both theaters and backwoods dives. Along the way, they inspired countless bands, from the legions of jangle pop groups in the mid-1980s to scores of alternative pop groups in the 1990s, who admired their slow climb to stardom and were instrumental in the rise of college radio. The band's politics, aesthetics, and hardworking ethos - largely inspired by the early punk and art rock movements of the 1970s - enabled the group to establish itself quickly as one of the pillars of the U.S.'s burgeoning alternative rock scene. Toward the mid-1990s, R.E.M. was an institution, as its influence was felt in new generations of bands.

R.E.M.'s music stands as a testament to diversity, with their catalog reflecting the changes in time and sound in American music over the length of the band's career. While their early music is full of lo-fi jangly guitars and murmured lyrics - leading to the album titled Murmur, their most recent album, Around the Sun, is more hi-fi and unlike anything done previously. Despite such shifts in album direction and the sound of each album changing substantially, fans are still able to identify an element of each song that retains the R.E.M. feel.

Discography:
Chronic Town EP(1982)
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2000)
Around the Sun (2004)