How a rock song with a mandolin made REM global superstars
That's me in the corner...
Hello friends,
I’m going way back into the music collection for you today.
Last week, I shared the story behind Britney Spears’s hit song …Baby One More Time. This week, I’ve still got music on the brain, and we’re going back in time — to the days when you could still get cassette tapes!
1991.
Thirty-one years ago this month, R.E.M’s hit song, Losing My Religion was released.
It climbed to #4 on the Billboard Top 100 that June.
For some of us, we will forever associate the song with this image of lead singer Michael Stipe dancing in the music video:
While others will forever associate it with this image:
That’s Brenda and Dylan breaking up on Beverly Hills, 90210… (another big moment of 1991).
Losing My Religion made REM, the indie band from Georgia, global superstars.
But how did it happen?
I was curious…
In the late 1980s, R.E.M. were kings of college radio.
Rolling Stone put them on the cover in 1987 and called them ‘America’s Best Rock and Roll Band’ – but wondered if they could really take on Top 40 radio.
The band had some mainstream success with songs like Stand, It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and The One I Love.
Then in 1990 they began working on a new album – and a song that would change everything.
Lead guitarist Peter Buck was experimenting with the mandolin and came up with a riff.
Next Bill Berry added the drums, then Mike Mills came up with the bass line.
Lead singer Michael Stipe listened to what they had created and wrote the lyrics, taking inspiration from The Police hit, Every Breath You Take.
The song was different than anything R.E.M. had done before.
It was written in a minor key, which is rarely the recipe for a hit song.
It didn't have a chorus.
And it was a rock song – built on a mandolin riff.
They recorded the song in a day, and shared it with their record label, saying this would be their first single off the new album.
The record label scoffed.
It would never work.
But the band persisted – and in February 1991, they released Losing My Religion as the lead single from their forthcoming album, Out of Time.
The song – that so many had doubted – catapulted R.E.M. to new levels of fame.
Losing My Religion made them global superstars.
R.E.M. had other hits over the years, including Everybody Hurts and Man on the Moon – but Losing My Religion remains their most successful song.
FUN FACT (that was not widely known in 1991):
Many people misunderstood the meaning of the song – interpreting it as an attack on religion. But Stipe has shared in several interviews that ‘losing my religion’ is a Southern expression that means ‘being at the end of one’s rope’, and ‘the moment when politeness gives way to anger.’
Here’s the music video if you’re feeling nostalgic…
Anyone else thinking of Brenda and Dylan now? Just me?
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How Can I Help?
How is the internal communication in your company?
I just gathered my list of the poor communication examples I’ve seen in the news from January — and IT IS LONG.
If you want to improve your company’s culture and performance, you can start by improving your communication.
I help clients with communication strategy, planning, and thinking. And I do the ‘doing’, too. I work mainly with large corporates (as my global corporate experience comes in handy) but I support small and mid-size companies, too.
I also teach people the skills to help them become better communicators and leaders through 1:1 coaching and team workshops (that are effective - and fun!).
So, if you know someone who could benefit from some help (as even the highest paid and most seasoned leaders do!), please get in touch and check out my website for more information.
And if you see any communication examples (the good, the bad and the ugly) that you think are worth analyzing or sharing, please send them my way!
Keep Smiling — and Stay Curious!
-Beth
LOVE this backstory - It is both inspirational and nostalgic for me, as I remember the REM cassette days and road trips around the south listening to this. My friends thought you weren't cool unless you had the early pre-Rolling-Stone-cover cassettes! The story that the record execs didn't think the mandolin-infused vibes would be a hit is inspiring to artists to just do what you do, embrace your vibe. Thanks for telling this story, looking forward to more!