I watched it during lockdown. To be honest, I was expecting re-hashed interviews and old clips cobbled together.
I didn’t realise it was new interviews, with the whole band, including Bill Berry! It was beautiful. It was sweet. It was touching. It was a real tonic. I felt like I was 13 again, excitedly devouring every piece of R.E.M. that made it onto my TV.
If you haven’t caught it already, the original podcast episode where they break down Try Not To Breathe is really fascinating as well.
I haven’t watched the rest of Song Exploder yet, but if it’s all on par with the Losing My Religion episode, I should. It nailed a sweet spot between technical details and musings on artistry that I don’t get often enough from music documentaries (especially anthology shows like this).
kinda weird that on the out of time liner notes there is no mention of bill singing on it. maybe its just mike mills singing several tracks. then again OOT liner notes have mistakes, like not crediting kate pierson on near wild heaven and so on.