Monster Music R.E.M., One Of

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Fame, alas, can insulate a performer from the masses. But nowadays when pop- music stars feel the need to get in touch with the public mood, they have only to log on to the nearest computer bulletin board. Which is precisely what Michael Stipe did a few weeks ago. The lead singer of the rock band R.E.M., based in Athens, Georgia, spent a few hours online to answer questions from his fans and satisfy his curiosity. "The record's almost done, and I'm bored," he typed. Folks peppered him with queries. What would the group's highly anticipated new CD sound like? "Like punk rock," he replied. "But loud."

R.E.M.'s new CD, Monster, out next week, does indeed blast with the boldest, brawniest music the band has ever recorded. In an interview with Time, Stipe described the new sound succinctly: "We wanted noise." Added R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills: "When you're in a band long enough, you want to try different things. On past albums we had been exploring acoustic instruments, trying to use the piano and mandolin, and we did it about all we wanted to do it. And you come back to the fact that playing loud electric-guitar music is about as fun as music can be."

Before MTV became the sugar daddy of rock 'n' roll, before Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder was even out of grade school, before the term alternative rock was trampled into the mud at the overhyped Woodstock '94, there was R.E.M. The , band, formed in 1980, is known for its artful, challenging music as well as its emotive, elliptical lyrics. Rather than succumbing to common-denominator tastes and releasing music that is too easily accessible, it has followed its own eccentric muse. In doing so, it set a standard for such alternative bands of the '90s as Pearl Jam and Offspring. Says Denise Sullivan, author of the book R.E.M. -- Talk About the Passion: "They've done everything their own way, on their own terms, and that's really rare."

The quartet -- Stipe, Mills, guitarist Peter Buck and drummer Bill Berry -- met in Athens in the late '70s. It was not altogether friendship at first sight. "We were definitely in different camps in school," says Berry. "((Mills)) was kind of the nerdy, preppie, straight-A student who hung out with the other straight-A students, and I was more the pot-smoking cool dude who hung around with the seedy element." As a teenager, Stipe wore unstylish corduroy pants with ribs as thick as ropes and drenched his hair with mustard. Despite that -- or perhaps because of it -- Buck found Stipe's "weird" taste in music appealing. All four eventually linked up at a party, discovered they shared musical interests and started a band.

In the early '80s came the second British invasion (the first, the Stones and Beatles), but this event was more an infection than an invasion, led by junk-pop groups such as Duran Duran and Haircut 100. R.E.M., whose oblique songs dealt with provocative topics like Bible-thumping televangelists and complaints about American imperialism, provided an alternative to the British sludge that was washing up on U.S. shores. The band received little early support from radio or MTV, but by touring college towns and playing small clubs it steadily built a base of loyal fans. Its 1983 debut album, Murmur, sold more than 500,000 copies. In contrast, R.E.M.'s 1992 album, Automatic for the People, sold more than 3 million copies, and one of that album's tracks, Everybody Hurts, earned the band four MTV Video Music Awards two weeks ago.

"It used to infuriate me that we'd be this really good American band that had several records out and we couldn't buy airplay on radio or MTV, and all these English bands would put out mediocre records and they'd sell a million copies," recalls Buck. "But we won. We outlasted them. None of those bands is around, none of them does any good work. They're all working in whatever the '90s equivalent to a gas station is -- a sidewalk shish kebab stand or / something."

The best may be yet to come, because the brash new Monster sounds as though it could become the most popular album of R.E.M.'s career. The band is planning a world tour -- its first in six years -- so most of the songs on the album are designed to rock people 10,000 at a time. Still, the songs sacrifice nothing in intelligence or depth. On King of Comedy, a robotic voice attacks pop culture for turning artistry into commerce: "I'm not your television ... I'm not commodity." Bang and Blame, an up-tempo song with meaty guitar hooks, is described by Stipe as a song "about domestic violence," but it may also be about the O.J. Simpson case: "You kiss on me/ tug on me ... jump on me/ bang on me ... you let go on me." Strange Currencies is about as close to an R. and B. love song as R.E.M. gets, and Stipe's vocals are openhearted: "I don't know why you're mean to me ... And I don't know what you mean to me."

The most haunting track is Let Me In, which harks back to Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of the grunge trio Nirvana who committed suicide in April. Over a bare, raging, echoing guitar Stipe sings, "I had a mind to try and stop you/ Let me in/ Let me in." The members of R.E.M., who are all in their 30s, were friends and mentors to the 27-year-old Cobain. "I spoke to ((Cobain)) on the telephone a lot the week and a half before he disappeared," says Stipe. "We wanted to collaborate. I thought it was something that could have pulled him out of the frame of mind he was in and get him to a place where positive stuff was going on." Stipe started writing the lyrics to Let Me In before Cobain's death and finished the song afterward. Stipe also dedicated the new album to another personal friend -- actor River Phoenix, who died last year.

Like Cobain and Phoenix, the men of R.E.M. have felt the pressures of stardom. "The one difficult time I went through was in 1985," says Stipe. "I just kind of lost my mind for a while." Disenchanted with music, he considered suicide, but, he says, "I don't have the courage. Not that it is a courageous act, but it takes something I don't have inside of me. I love life too much." Berry says the constant touring nearly broke up his marriage. "When I was 21 years old I jumped into a van, and when I was 31 I rolled out of a tour bus," he says. "You don't really grow up that way." To ground himself, he now runs a hay farm. "My relationship with my wife is much better, and I realize there's something in my life other than being in R.E.M."

Monster's first single, What's the Frequency, Kenneth?, uses this bizarre phrase, uttered by the men who beat up newscaster Dan Rather on a Manhattan street in 1986, as a metaphor for keeping up with pop culture. "The band talks a lot about the time when a younger generation comes around that we won't get," says Buck. "That hasn't happened yet. But in the next 10 years there will be some new fashion, some new music, and we'll go, 'This is where we get off the boat."' They're not off that boat yet. Loud, youthful and smart, Monster demonstrates that R.E.M. still knows the frequency.