From The Rumpus
I’ve been wondering if R.E.M. purposefully scheduled their break-up announcement for autumn. I would not put it past them. Their deft use of symbolism was always one of their strong suits. Although they’d been discussing it for some time, they made it official as the natural world was dying gracefully around us. Leaves curl, darken and spiral down. The balmy air and long days of warm sunshine dissipate, shadows lengthen ever earlier, and R.E.M., a band most fans would place in the summer of their lives, is dead, going out as they came in 31 years ago: at one with the gods. . . Read Essay