R.E.M. Style
Apparently R.E.M. is “coming out” now. As one industry pundit said, “while their recent albums were a bit insular, Accelerate sounds as if it were made with the audience in mind.” So R.E.M. is “coming out” as the more extroverted band we loved in the 80’s. But Stipe is also “coming out” and acknowledging he’s gay, too. A coincidence?
Has anyone heard the new R.E.M. album? Is it any good? Leave a comment, let me know!
But what’s fascinating and potentially useful for those of us interested in word-craft is Michael Azerrad’s article about Stipe in Spin magazine. It’s Web-writing at its best, and worth studying. Web-writing is surely the next-generation of sweet prose, no doubt. As a lifelong aficionado of writing style and an OSU journalism grad, I’ve studied the sweeping changes in articulate style in the last two centuries, and this new Web-writing style deserves careful consideration. You see it in blogs, in a crude way, but it’s obviously reaching higher places, and English style is undergoing evolutionary change. I wonder if they teach the mechanics of this style in journalism or anywhere.
Azerrad’s style is economical. There’s no fat, not a single word. He conjures a whirlwind of fast-paced pictures like the MTV music videos, but Azerrad uses clipped word-pictures. Fascinating, somewhat disjointed, and reflective of the American psyche.
Anyway, the R.E.M. interview is a worthwhile read.
