R.E.M. Biography

[Folkie]

My birthday is on Friday, and I just received a copy of Tony Fletcher's "Perfect Circle" as a gift. As you know, I've been an avid R.E.M. fan since 1986, and I have a particular interest in their early material. I haven't dug into the book yet, but I'd be interested to hear some responses to it, particularly from some of the R.E.M. experts here. Where does "Perfect Circle" rank among R.E.M. biographies? Are there any other titles you would recommend? (Sweden, this post is for you!)

[Sweden]

Haha, can't help you I'm afraid. I have had the book since it came out but haven't read it. I liked the earlier REMarks book by Fletcher, but I think I am partial because it was the first REM book I ever got. I will be interesting to read a book going all the way up to the split though.

My favourite REM books are probably It Crawled From The South (absolutely essential!) and Adventures in Hifi (although some of the timeline info there is outdated by now). Maybe I'm partial to Adventures too though, since one of the authors, Tim Abott is a friend of mine and I am mentioned as a contributor/source...

[Folkie]

Thanks, David. I'll have a look on Amazon for "It Crawled from the South," but not until after I've read "Perfect Circle." I seem to recall owning a book published by "Rolling Stone" magazine, but it got lost in the shuffle when I made my last move. I've been relearning tons of early R.E.M. material on guitar over the last few weeks. Although the lyrics on the early songs are inscrutable, the sustained level of creativity over their long career is astounding!

[8mileshigher]

...Although the lyrics on the early songs are inscrutable ...

[cestlamort]

Tangentially, Tony Fletcher's Smiths biography ("There's a light that never goes out") is the best I've read.