Some will say that REM's breakup is long overdue ? but we should remember the great contributions they made to rock music
There were, predictably, those who observed that REM's split had come a decade and a half too late, that the US rock band should have called it a day long before their albums started to be reviewed with the dread words "return to form", before they were forced to downscale stadium shows into arenas. The long, slow slide of REM, however, was perceived as such only because of the standards they had set earlier in their career. In the 1980s, these four friends from Athens, Georgia, reordered the possibilities open to a band inspired to form in the wake of punk rock, helping their contemporaries immeasurably along the way. They offered exposure to bands who might otherwise have not come to the attention of a mainstream audience, taking bands such as Minutemen and the Replacements out on tour as their opening acts. By bridging the mainstream and the left field, they created the template for what became known in the US as "college rock", offering a space for scores of young bands. They fought free of the rigid orthodoxies dictated by punk and, by taking musical inspiration from 60s bands such as the Byrds, introduced a new audience to music that had been swept under the carpet in the wake of 1977's Year Zero. And, of course, they showed repeatedly that rock music could and should have a conscience, by campaigning for causes both global and local. They will be remembered not as the middle-aged millionaires of their split, but as the group that inspired musicians and fans alike.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/22/in-praise-of-rem
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