Ever notice how the really great bands from that time have gone bad. REM...Pet Shop Boys and their whole disco thing...and Depeche Mode and they're we now suck thing.
Unfortunately, the "decline" in REM's music can be traced to that humbug called mortality. Their drummer has a burst aneurysm, quits the band. Air rage guitarist. They've reached the big 4-0, so no one will play their music on the radio anyway; so they seem to be going toward the introspective side. Actually staging an enormous comeback might be beyond their ambitions now. Ever notice how music artists, at a certain age, have to work ten times as hard as the "Britneys" to get a song played? If Sting hadn't sold "Desert Rose" for a Jaguar commercial, his album would've died quietly. REM had some good songs in the last eight years; whither Top 40 radio?
