REM look back on Monster: 'We did not want to become the dancing monkey'

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REM look back on Monster: 'We did not want to become the dancing monkey'

By Mark Savage

 

Michael Stipe: "We didn't want fame, we didn't want money, we wanted to be a vital creative band". / GETTY IMAGES

 

REM's ninth album, Monster, is the most challenging and polarising record the band ever released.

 

When it arrived in 1994, the band were at the peak of their popularity, thanks to the acoustic beauty and delicate humanity of their preceding two records: Out of Time and Automatic for the People.

 

But the group were restless. "We wanted to get away from who we were," said guitarist Peter Buck. And so they torpedoed their old sound with an armoury of guitars and effects pedals; making one of the strangest mainstream rock albums of the 1990s.

 

Enveloped in a murky sludge of distortion, Monster found singer Michael Stipe writing about characters who were menacing, obsessive and desperate. "I need a chance, a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance," he sang on Strange Currencies, hopelessly trying to convince someone they were in love with him.

 

Full Story: bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-50206491