Review of Peter Ames Carlin’s new bio from Dwight Garner of The New York Times.
2 Likes
Another review, this one by Mark Krotov for The New Yorker.
4 Likes
the New Yorker one is a pretty good review, other than that it calls Nightswimming “irredeemable”. 
1 Like
On the occasion of Peter Ames Carlin being a guest on this week’s episode of Sound Opinions, co-host Greg Kot lists his 9 favorite R.E.M. albums.
2 Likes
An excerpt from the book here, taking in the Monster tour and Bill’s aneurysm. A lot more detail than I’ve read before. Scary stuff.
2 Likes
Wow, no kidding. And he was 38 at the time? Man.
I just finished the book and came here looking to chat about it. I thought it was like a very high level look at the group’s history that didn’t really feel like it uncovered new ground. And it was a little weird the way it gets into the heads of the band members… kind of assuming what they were thinking at the time. And the textual analysis of some of the lyrics was interesting the way it was inserted into the narrative of the book and tied to it, but it felt like such a personal thing to do… it almost didn’t fit for me. All in all though it reignited some dormant REM feelings for me and I ended up listening to their full discography in reverse chronological order when I wasn’t reading the book the past two weeks. So fun.
2 Likes
I agree. It definitely left me wanting. So much so, I read David Buckley’s excellent “R.E.M. — Fiction” immediately afterwards!
1 Like