The Name of This Band Is R.E.M.: A Biography

An electrifying cultural biography of the greatest and last American rock band of the millennium, whose music ignited a generation--and reasserted the power of rock and roll

＂[Carlin’s] unique gift for capturing the sweep and tenor of a cultural moment...is here on brilliant display.＂ --Michael Chabon

In the spring of 1980, an unexpected group of musical eccentrics came together to play their very first performance at a college party in Athens, Georgia. Within a few short years, they had taken over the world - with smash records like Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster and Green. Raw, outrageous, and expressive, R.E.M.’s distinctive musical flair was unmatched, and a string of mega-successes solidified them as generational spokesmen. In the tumultuous transition between the wide-open 80s and the anxiety of the early 90s, R.E.M. challenged the corporate and social order, chasing a vision and cultivating a magnetic, transgressive sound.

In this rich, intimate biography, critically acclaimed author Peter Ames Carlin looks beyond the sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll to open a window into the fascinating lives of four college friends - Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry - who stuck together at any cost, until the end. Deeply descriptive and remarkably poetic, steeped in 80s and 90s nostalgia, The Name of This Band is R.E.M. paints a cultural history of the commercial peak and near-total collapse of a great music era, and the story of the generation that came of age at the apotheosis of rock.

PETER AMES CARLIN is a writer and the author of several books, including Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon, published in October, 2016 and Bruce, a biography of Bruce Springsteen published in October, 2012. Carlin has also been a free-lance journalist, a senior writer at People in New York City, and a television columnist and feature writer at The Oregonian in Portland. A regular speaker on music, writing and popular culture, Carlin lives in Portland, Oregon.