Chris Heath takes a look at the implications of the band’s split in the following essay from GQ.com’s look back at the year in music:
And millions of Americans are surprised to find themselves suddenly remembering, as though awakening from a trance, how much they used to love R.E.M. How simultaneously gratifying and infuriating must this be for the band itself, after so long striving on albums that would have been slathered with praise if made by unknowns half their age but that were instead judged inadequate to the unrealistic task of living up to their past and our fond memories. It’s strange how unfairly the love affair between audience and artist can turn sour. In the uphill years, the same things that were once adored—their eccentric individualism, their stubborn lack of glamour, an aura of principle and honor, the eternal Michael Stipe-ness of Michael Stipe—suddenly seemed to count against them. What had once appeared natural and unexpected and effortless was routinely scorned as labored and mannered and calculated. As with any abandoned lover, whatever they did was wrong—failing to change, changing too much; trying too hard, never trying hard enough. And now, into the space they vacate—according to a natural law of pop music and time that is both cruel and wondrous—the love we once felt for them is free to return.—Chris Heath
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