Isn’t it ironic! On the debut day of the X-FACTOR TV Singing Competition, which offers a $5 Million Dollar record deal as first prize, that a record company may have played a role in R.E.M. breaking up. The news is not unexpected but disappointing just the same. Rolling Stone is reporting that R.E.M. is calling it quits after 31 years together.
While commercial success and radio airplay has been rare in the last 10 years, the band had been touring and recording. REM released a new CD in March, 2011 (Collapse Into Now) and that seemed to be a turning point. “During our last tour, and while making Collapse Into Now and putting together this greatest hits retrospective, we started asking ourselves, 'what next'?," bassist Mike Mills wrote on the R.E.M. site. "Working through our music and memories from over three decades was a hell of a journey. We realized that these songs seemed to draw a natural line under the last 31 years of our working together."
The members of REM are parting on good terms, "We feel kind of like pioneers in this," Mills wrote. "There's no disharmony here, no falling-outs, no lawyers squaring-off. We've made this decision together, amicably and with each other's best interests at heart. The time just feels right."
There are reports that record company politics and policies also has a hand in the decision, Ethan Kaplan, owner of the R.E.M. fan community Murmurs and former Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology at Warner Bros. Records was quoted on the Rolling Stone Website as saying. “[Warner Bros.] changed starting last September, and I think the demands on a band now to get a record out were more than they might have wanted to commit. I can understand that after how hard they worked for how long, the thought of going back to 'paying dues' with new label staff, in a very weird industry, was too much.”
The Band is working on a complete retrospective package, but no release date has been set. What was the ultimate R.E.M. track for you?
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