And there was a minor twitter blow up when the Bob Dylan-centric Jokermen podcast (a pretty good podcast incidentally) got mad at the band members suggesting that band reunions are never as good, and implied that REM not doing anything anymore implied they didn’t give a shit, before admitting they didn’t know much of anything about REM.

Was a bit stupid, but at the same time I did think it was interesting that a podcast by 30-somethings about singer songwriters and art pop (they’ve done Animal Collective and are going through the Beach Boys catalogue at the moment) would have no knowledge or interest in REM.

I feel like REM splitting and the members dropping out of the mainstream entirely, has ended up having a trickle-down effect of them dropping off the radar almost entirely for anyone younger than we elder-millenials - even the sorts of cultier music fans who you’d think would be quite into at least their early stuff. Their reputation seems to be shrinking to that of a band who had a couple of hits in the early 90’s.