Review of Peter Ames Carlin’s new bio from Dwight Garner of The New York Times.
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Another review, this one by Mark Krotov for The New Yorker.
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the New Yorker one is a pretty good review, other than that it calls Nightswimming “irredeemable”. 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I agree. It definitely left me wanting. So much so, I read David Buckley’s excellent “R.E.M. — Fiction” immediately afterwards!
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I’m only up to about 1981, so this assessment might be a little premature. But I’m enjoying the book more than I expected.
I would agree with comments about “getting in the band’s heads” - a lot of the narrative feels somewhat based on conjecture and filling in gaps with assumed perspectives. The downside of this is that you sometimes question the validity of the text. But the unexpected upside, for me, is that it succeeds in really putting the reader right there with them in the moment. It’s a very transportative narrative if you’re willing to go with it. For that reason it’s got some value as a different approach on their story, and it does seem pretty exhaustive in corroborating details from people who were there, but I don’t know how much of it the band would agree with.
For example there’s a level of detail and intimacy to Michael’s childhood/ back story which really paints the picture of his adolescence in a way I haven’t seen before, wrestling with identity, exploring style and his growing relationship with art and performance, almost like a Michael Stipe The Celebrity origin story; but who knows how accurate it really is in terms of getting inside his teenage psyche. It’s a good chapter either way.
Having previously read Remarks, Fiction and It Crawled From the South, I’m not sure this would ever replace any of those as being more definitive, but it is an unexpectedly fresh approach to their story (at least so far anyway)
I was given this book as a gift and have been holding off on reading it because the title just seems like such a red flag. I feel like anyone who’s taking it into their hands to write a music biography should know enough about music history to know that “The Name Of This Band Is…” is a Talking Heads thing– yes Michael Stipe would say it on stage but only as a REFERENCE to Talking Heads. So naming an R.E.M. book after it just seems weird and makes me question the validity of the author right off the bat. I’ve already read Begin The Begin, It Crawled From The South, Perfect Circle, and skimmed Adventures In Hi Fi (that one’s more of a picture book)… so I feel like this one might be best off delegated to sitting in my R.E.M. collection looking pretty.
I agree. The title is utterly incongruous, being a phrase far more commonly associated with Talking Heads it’s just really off brand. Like you said, Michael only ever said it off the cuff in reference to Talking Heads so it’s a bizarre choice. If you wanted to use a Stipe quote like that “We’re REM and This Is What We Do” would be more apt (though an admittedly terrible title).
it is a decent read though if you can get past that
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“Decent read.” Yeah, that about sums it up. “Decent” – as in, don’t spend too much money on this, and don’t expect any new revelations. Did the intro strike anyone else the way it did me? I got the strong impression Carlin was expecting he would be granted interviews with the guys, and had to settle for a well-written rehash of what’s already been written or published. If you want a great, engrossing read about this band, check out John Hunter’s Maps & Legends.