What is “Try Not to Breathe” about? The Studio 360 podcast interviews a listener who, remembering how her father died of a sudden illness, has a touching eureka moment about the message of the song on R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People: “I think it’s about somebody who has reached the end of their life. They have a level of acceptance that maybe the people around them don’t have. I felt like that was my dad talking to me.... It’s about facing the truth and accepting that life is ugly sometimes.” (Contains download link and embedded player of radio segment.)
posted by joeclark on Nov 3, 2009 - 44 comments

Pylon guitarist and co-founder Randall Bewley died yesterday of a heart attack at age 53. [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome on Feb 26, 2009 - 31 comments

Pop Songs 07 is a blog by Matthew Perpetua, founder of Fluxblog, in which he is attempting to write about every R.E.M. song eventually. With the recent release of Stereogum’s tribute to Automatic For The People, Drive XV, (free mp3s of covers of every track on the record by a range of indie rock acts) he was asked to write an essay about the album: Sweetness Followed: 15 Years After Automatic.
posted by ND¢ on Oct 16, 2007 - 53 comments

A nice mixed bag of live mp3s.
posted by dobbs on May 9, 2006 - 18 comments