By Dean Goodman 08.27.96 Reuters New Media The four members of R.E.M. took just four days last week to make the biggest financial decision of their career when they signed a contract reportedly worth more than $80 million with their current label, Warner Bros. Records. This time a year ago, however, it seemed as if [...]
By Rich Copley 08.27.96 Athens Daily News While the question of which record company R.E.M. would sign with tantalized rock fans and press for months, it only occupied about three weeks of the musicians’ time – and now they’re happy to get back to the music. “It’s basically something that’s been on the back burner [...]
By Caroline Davies and John Hiscock 08.27.96 The Telegraph R.E.M. has signed a £51.6 million deal with Warner Brothers Records – the biggest contract in the music industry to date. The quartet, from Athens, Georgia, become the highest paid stars in the business, eclipsing Janet Jackson, the sister of Michael Jackson, who signed a £45 [...]
08.26.96 Wall Of Sound According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. signed a new $80-million, five-album contract with Warner Bros. Records on Saturday — the largest recording contract in history — thus ending an aggressive bidding war that began when the Georgia-based band completed New Adventures In Hi-Fi, the last album in its previous six-album [...]
By Neil McCormick 08.24.96 The Telegraph Lest we get carried away by the notion that there is only one critically lauded, multi-platinum, stadium-playing rock group extant in the world today (and, by God, they are one of ours!), the American band R.E.M. release their 10th album next month, a stunning and ambitious work entitled New [...]
By Rich Copley 08.22.96 Athens Daily News Dan Matthews, program director at Athens’ WPUP (103.7 FM), knows exactly when his station will play R.E.M.’s new single, “E-Bow The Letter.” “The second I get it, I’ll give it to whoever’s on the air and say, ‘Play this now,’” Matthews said of the single. That second should [...]
By Andrew Gowers Financial Times How do rock stars grow old gracefully, with popularity intact and wealth enhanced ? What s left when chasing fads and smashing hotel rooms pale into tedium or indignity ? Many more have sought this modern philosopher’s stone than have found it. But there is one contemporary outfit that seems [...]
By Mary Bruno 08.15.96 Mr. Showbiz You’d think all the members of R.E.M. would have seen Independence Day by now. After all, the band’s song “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” is featured in 20th Century Fox’s summer blockbuster and in the latest wave of ID4 television [...]
By Barney Hoskyns 08.14.96 Mojo Magazine When R.E.M. concluded the Monster world tour with a shambolic version of Wild Thing in Atlanta last November, they were so frazzled and generally beaten up by the experience of being on the road again that their future was the last thing they were ready to contemplate. Relieved to [...]
08.05.96 Dotmusic Not content with delivering one of the finest albums of the year, REM make their debut as stars of the silver screen in September. The Athens, Georgia band have had three previous video releases, but all have been compilations of video clips accompanied by interviews with the band. Road Movie, however, is the [...]