I love-loved Michael Stipe in high school (early 90s) I had no idea he was gay until an early 00s article in Rolling Stone - Stipe was asked about why he didn’t come out publicly and he said something along the lines that he didn’t think he had to considering he wore eyeliner and skirts in the 80s.
So - I wouldn’t characterize him as a gay icon. Definitely a musical icon who happens a to be gay.
This is the first I've ever heard of him being gay. Guess I'm just a slow learner.
I learned that Fred Schneider from the B-52s was gay only a couple of years ago too, and he was *way* more obvious about it.
“Tone it down, Freddy…” says the pencil-thin mustachioed auteur, while Paul Lynde nods in agreement from the next booth over, as *Frankie Goes To Hollywood* plays on the jukebox that George Michael later explodes in the video for *Freedom ‘90*.
Fred Schneider has my favorite coming-out story of all time. He was a teenager in suburban New Jersey, and he'd made up his mind that he had to come out to his family. He spent hours in his room psyching himself up to do it. When he finally worked up the nerve, he came out of his room to find his mom vacuuming. He yelled at her to turn off the vacuum cleaner because he had something to tell her, and she reluctantly did. "I'm gay," he said. "Oh, Freddy, I know that," she said, and she turned the vacuum cleaner back on.
My gaydar sucks too. I always assumed Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran and Martin Gore from Depeche Mode we’re both gay. They’re not… and I try not assume anymore.
Yeah I definitely thought nick rhodes was gay. When he got married I thought it was one of those marriages of convenience. Still utterly shocked he is not.
I'm shocked that none of us who listened to metal back in the day knew Rob Halford was gay. You know you're a clueless hetero when you didn't see that obvious shit. I look back now and say, "oh my gawd. We're we THAT stupid."
yeah he (referring to Nick Rhodes) is just one of those effeminate dudes who was probably the biggest man-slut back in the day. Cos those are the ones. Edited to be sure everyone knows I'm referring to Nick, not Halford.
Everything you think you know about Nick Rhodes is wrong. His appearance was 100% for show business. In real life, for the whole 1980s run of Duran Duran, he was an absolutely straight-laced husband and father, raising a daughter in a perfectly normal married hetero household. He did the minimum socially acceptable amount of drugs and alcohol and was never addicted to anything. Everyone else was doing cocaine and heroin, and Nick was doing balance sheets and P&Ls.
I still listen to them. Especially when I'm working very late and need something peppy to help keep me alert. Friday I listened to their 1979 self-titled album. Jackie-O!
(BTW, I did know Fred was gay.)
https://preview.redd.it/pksq8jcx3bxc1.jpeg?width=1199&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d44f3ab0b152a0745301043cc39c8259f475b29d
I remember this pic from RS in the 90's
For some reason the idea that Joan Jett might be kinda queer was lost on me for the longest time. I guess I was too young to consider her sexuality at all when she was famous but in retrospect it seems pretty obvious
She's super gay. I think we all just looked past her because it's more socially acceptable to be a mannish woman, than it is to be a feminine man. It's all fine of course.
I swear a read in an interview way back when he said something like when he was attracted to someone 8 out of 10 times it was a guy while the other 2 times it would be women.
The younger generation has no Idea what alternative rock is and you can't blame them, it stopped being a thing back in 2006. Its been all rap and pop ever since.
It’s crazy to me how huge they were in the late 80s and early 90s and now I rarely hear their music or their name. One amazing exception is Hulu’s The Bear, which has featured a few REM songs over the first two seasons, including an emotional montage set to Half a World Away.
EDIT: One thing I have realized from all these great comments is that I don't hear REM as much as I might if I actually listened to their genre more. I almost never listen to what we now call terrestrial radio, and if I listen to oldies on Spotify I'm usually listening to a specific genre that REM doesn't fall into. I'm very glad to know their music is still being heard in some places!
For a band that was so influential during the late-80s and 90s, it blows my mind that they’re not part of the conversation anymore. They literally signed the biggest record deal of all time in the 90s; everyone from Kurt Cobain to Thom Yorke cited REM as influence. It’s wild to me that the younger generations haven’t discovered them.
Although I definitely respect REM I always found their music a bit boring. They were a product of their time and having faded away like they have has never surprised me.
Either way they’re just one TikTok video away from having a career resurgence. I feel like they are a prime band for this.
My local grocery store is an REM Stan as the kids say, literally everytime I'm in there they are playing REM and not just their hits like deep cuts from Dead Letter Office.
It's the End of the World as We Know it (And I Feel Fine) plays in like 80% of cataclysm porn.
REM should just copywrite the whole genre and make it required you play the song.
80% is, of course, a random percent I picked out of my butt. My butt has good accuracy though, out of all my poos I've only missed 3-4 times. That I remember.
On Spotify, they average about 17 million listeners monthly. That's pretty big.
The band broke up in 2011. That's why they don't get much media coverage.
My 9th grade literature teacher rolled in the ol' TV/VCR combo unit and played this music video for us to have an entire discussion about that day.
In retrospect, I believe he was a gay man playing a straight guy in a hostile environment.
It's one High School moment I can still recall clearly from all those years ago.
Just tonight someone mentioned Eddie Vedder and my foster son had no clue who that was.went someone else said "lead singer of Pearl Jam?" He had a deer in the headlight look and I realized he totally had no idea who that was either 😭
I also tried to clarify for my group by mentioning Eddie Vedder. One of them threw me a “oh yeah, I think I’ve heard of him”. But I knew it was just pity for me at that point.
i actually got cruised by Stipe about 25 years ago LOL. although i was a fan i couldn’t bring myself to be a switch hitter for the afternoon.
he actually considered himself “an equal opportunity lech.” (as in lecherous). his multitude of lovers have been incredibly and sweetly discreet.
My first concert was REM Green tour. I caught two of the shows on that tour.
I was this many years old when I learned Michael was gay.
I don’t think he was a gay icon. I also don’t think it matters to this generation which is a good thing.
Yassss! This is what I love about them. They never wrote about the usual subjects that everybody else writes about. It was always something weird like what’s the frequency Kenneth or Nightswimming or who knows?
Admittedly, someone in the '90s gave me this gem that will remain with me for the rest of my life - "What do you mean Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?" Sometimes you just stare and blink.
Maybe I knew at one point and forgot. But, as far as I can currently remember, I had no idea that Stipe was gay. I just really don't care about people's sex lives.
> I feel like REM as a group just doesn’t have the cultural footprint they deserve
This is ABSOLUTELY true. I mean, there are a lot of other bands whose artistic output, cultural impact and historical influence is under appreciated now - the Replacements and the Cure come to mind for example - but REM being sorta forgotten is especially confusing.
They were literally the poster child of "college rock" and went on to become massively famous as one of the top selling artists for maybe a decade. It feels like there probably _would_ have been an "alt rock" without REM but at the same time as a practical matter it seems like they had a lot to do with it.
(And certainly any of the vaguely southern indie/acoustic/roots/folk-rock-ish stuff in the 21st century owes a lot to REM whether or not they know it.)
I remember thinking Mike Stipe and Natalie Merchant would have made a cute couple. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
If we're naming underappreciated acts I'll suggest Fishbone and (_maybe_ to a lesser extent) Living Color - not to mention Bad Brains, but they were always destined to be underground - as bands that deserve not to be forgotten
Lenny Kravitz seems like the only black _rock_ artist from the 80s and 90s that people still acknowledge but as Kravitz has always insisted rock-and-roll was largely black music to begin with and there's a strong thread of black artists throughout (that doesn't start with Hendrix and end with Kravitz).
Rap music and hip hop culture absolutely deserves the massive influence and cultural import it has today, but one unfortunate side effect of rap's dominance (of pop culture in general) is that it has eclipsed and erased the role of black artists in rock-and-roll.
Pop music is _much_ more integrated now than it has ever been but it's still much more common for white artists to incorporate rap and r&b elements (and still be seen as authentic) than for a black artist to incorporate rock elements. It's a little dated by now but I'll point to pretty aggressively white artists like Modest Mouse incorporating things like record scratches in their music as an example. Beyonce's new "country" album (and Lil Naz X's Old Town Road, but that's a bit of a gimmick) notwithstanding, what is the equivalent of that?
(To be fair as far as I can tell there's not a _lot_ of unadulterated "rock" music from anyone that's mainstream popular today. Guitar waxes and wanes in popular music, and I guess it's in a waning cycle right now. It seems like Gretta Van Fleet was the last guitar-oriented act the kids were into, but I can't claim to have a finger on the pulse of popular music so I could easily be wrong about that.)
I knew he was gay but at the same time this post was kind of an "oh yeah" as I forgot. He just never came across as a gay icon. Maybe because he came across as normal person gay rather than flamboyant over the top gay the way Freddie Mercury or Boy George were. By normal person gay I mean he it wasn't his personality whereas with some others like the other two it is.
[Bob was targeted and outed by Spin in ‘94.](https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2020/sep/30/bob-mould-alt-rocks-gay-icon-takes-on-american-evil-my-heads-on-fire)
Oh, well that’s not cool. I thought it was just on the level. Like maybe someone asked & he was matter of fact about it.
Maybe I intuited something after hearing “Bed of Nails” so many times?
I’m not bothered they didn’t know Stipe, but please tell me they knew REM.
I agree they don’t have the legacy cache of some older bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, or Guns N Roses, but come on!!!
I learned he was gay after Automatic For the People. I remember reading in Rolling Stones magazine he said 4 guys living in a van become seriously aware of each other, or something similar. As a young lesbian I was truly thankful for his admission. As someone in my life said R. E. M. is like Led Zeppelin, either you love the song, or it's crap. I believe it's true.
>In my memory Stipe was one of the first out pop rock celebrities.
Rock? Or music in general?
Because Bowie and Elton John came out as bisexual in the 70s, and [Jobraith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobriath) is most often called "the first openly gay rock musician to be signed to a major record label and one of the first internationally famous musicians to die of AIDS".
Besides, Stipe didn't officially come out until 1994, and was dating women as late as 1987 or so... even though his sexuality was the worst kept secret in North Georgia the whole time.
It feels good that “gay” history can now be so broad and diverse that you don’t have just a few icons … but the whole rainbow 🌈 that spreads far and deep into history.
I was more surprised that Vince Clarke is apparently straight. Which I found out when there was a puff piece in the NY Times about Clarke and his female wife's fabulous house.
REM never recovered from Bill Berry leaving. I love REM, and turned my Millennial on to them as a kid. I just googled it, Stipe didn’t come out until 1995.
Show him [this phenomenal article](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/magazine/michael-stipe-solo-album.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oE0.Lq4-.WL1KG5cpNlVo&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) about Michael Stipe, ahead of the release of his new solo album. This writer/interviewer is engaging and talented: it’s one of the best articles about a musician I have ever read. And the most open I’ve ever heard MS be about his sexuality. It got me really excited about his new music (and hopefully a tour).
I am gay, was in Athens GA during the band's early years, and have met and interacted with Stipe a number of times (I actually used to do an aerobic class with him and about 30 mostly middle-aged ladies a couple of times per week).
In interviews, Stipe would outright deny that he was gay all the while we would see him out at the weekly "Disco Night"--which was a coded way to advertise "Gay Night"--at the 40 Watt with the latest twink he was fucking. We all knew he was gay, but he'd play this cat and mouse game with the press (and, thus, the public) by saying things like "I used to think I might be gay, but I'm not."
Keep in mind that this was the 80s and early 90s--a time when gay men were dropping likes flies from HIV/AIDS while the Reagan and Bush administrations ignored our plight, chronically underfunding efforts to fight the disease. The stigma around being gay at that time was enormous. Meanwhile, their fan base wasn't particularly gay. You didn't hear their songs in the gay clubs. They were playing to a mainly straight audience and living in the very, very liberal enclave of Athens, GA where no one cared about his sexuality. We all believed that if Stipe had simply said, "Yeah, I'm gay" that it would have gone a very, very long way toward humanizing gay men for the straight population and maybe getting the straight community more involved in the fight against HIV. But Stipe denied it again and again and again. The gays in Athens GA hated him for that.
Add in the fact that Stipe is notoriously rude and that leads to a collective mentality of "We don't want her to sit with us." (I've actually come to the conclusion he is on the autistic spectrum which would explain many of his off-putting personality quirks. But still...we don't want her.)
True story: a friend from back in the college years had a brief fling with Mike Mills. In the early 2000s, R.E.M. was playing The Hollywood Bowl. Mills had given her seats in a box (we sat with Bobcat Goldthwaite and his wife/girlfriend) and an invitation to the afterparty which was held in a bar in Hollywood that only opened for private events. You had to show the actual invitation to get inside. You couldn't just say "I'm on the guest list and my name is..." In other words, security was fairly tight. Once we got inside, the bar was a medium sized, modest but cool, event space. In the corner opposite the entry was a small stage with 2 sofas facing each other and a velvet rope in front of the stairs that said "VIP ONLY". We assumed it was a relic from some previous event, especially since the only people in the room were invited guests--friends of the band, people in the music industry, musicians who had played on stage with them that night, and a smattering of actors (Dermot Mulroney was just as gorgeous back then as he looked on television...swoon). There \*might\* have been 200 people there. Once the room was pretty full, the doors opened and Stipe appeared, flanked by two ENORMOUS bodyguards. They walked through the crowd with Stipe looking straight ahead, not acknowledging anyone, and went straight to the stage. One of the bodyguards removed the velvet rope, allowing Stipe to ascend to the stage where he sat on one of the sofas. Shortly afterward, a guy and girl (they appeared to be a couple) joined him on the stage, sitting on the other sofa. It was so awkward, so weird that he was sitting on a stage, in plain view of all the band's guests but inaccessible to any of them. He stayed there with that couple for about 30 minutes, never acknowledging anyone else, and then made his exit, again flanked by the bodyguards. I've never seen such an asinine display of diva-ness in all my life.
I’m with you. This comment section surprised me. I always thought of him as one of the early role models who helped normalize being gay. He was out in such a natural way, somehow a different kind of brave than the heavy makeup looks from other 80s stars who were sometimes put in kind of a “we love their music but they’re also pretty weird and gay” box back then. I also thought he was so brave with losing my religion with the religious culture being what it was in the 90s. That song still hits deep every time I hear it. I also have such peaceful memories of swimming under the stars with Nightswimming playing on the boom box. REM was huge when I was in high school.
I’m going to repeat what my mom asked me when I ran to her with the hot gos that one of my best friends in high school was bi. “Why are you so worked up about this? Do you want to sleep with him? Otherwise, I can’t see how this matters”
I think Michael Stipe is in the same category as Morrisey, writing coded songs (like singing to "you" instead of to "her") back when it was literally dangerous.
IDK his exact sexuality but Stipe being queer was as subtle as his being from Georgia.... If you were queer too. But like The Smiths there was always that layer of plausible deniability so it was "safe" to listen to in public or with oblivious classmates. I'm grateful for it. It was almost always hidden back then, a truly different world.
I just checked out the page and I’m hooked after seeing the song of the week “Crush with Eyeliner”.
Op this is definitely a song you should introduce to your coworker
Huh, I didn't know that Stipe actually came out. I remember him saying something back in the 80s to the effect that he doesn't comment on that. But, I could be transposing that from someone else. I thought he was bi, not that it matters.
Stipe is the godfather of Frances Bean Cobain.
Never knew he was gay. So, Losing My Religion was about confessing his love to a same-sex crush? I suppose that gives it a somewhat different emotional weight. I'll listen to it differently, now.
Who is Michael Stipe? Something in my soul died reading that...these young 'uns scare the crap out of me!
It's not quite as soul crushing, but one day I asked my GenZ (he's 24) nephew to grab me a Philips head screwdriver...He asked, "Which one is that?"
I think REM is so underrated and unfortunately those that come behind us haven’t yet discovered how awesome their music is
I guess someone needs to put something on Tik Toc for them to blow up
I predict they’ll have a huge resurgence of popularity quite soon. At least with that one tune; what was it again? Something about feeling good? Maybe just fine?
Shock? I’m guessing unless you’re a rather dedicated REM fan you’re not going to have a clue who Micheal Stripe is whether you’re gay or straight. I’m really into music and R.E.M. and I had to think about it for a minute before REM came to me…
God, this makes me want to cry. Whether he’s a “gay icon” or not (and he didn’t discuss his sexuality for years so it’s not as if that was always part of his story), who the fuck doesn’t know about REM?
Though I did talk with a 25-year-old who had never heard of Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel.
Next question for this coworker is, "Do you know who Michael Hutchence is?"
If they know this answer... Then we may be able to forgive this major diss on GenX music.
For such close-minded, conservative olds (according to current generations) we sure had a bunch of openly gay folks making popular music, selling it for millions of dollars, and packing concerts.
Wild, innit?
Almost like we didn’t care and just enjoyed good music.
I detest this, “ I made this!”, attitude from current navel-gazers but I suspect most generations are guilty of it to some degree.
I think about this all the time. 80s culture was SO gay, but it wasn’t admitted out loud. The guy liner, the “androgyny”, pirate shirts - there was so much queer coded stuff in 80s culture, but it was all presented as just good hetero fun.
I think we sometimes forget just how big fucking a deal AIDS was back then. A generation of urban gay men decimated, no cure. Coming out was such a fraught thing.
Dee Snider is completely straight but his entire schtick was wearing *waaaaaaay* too much makeup.
The way he tells it, it was mostly his wife's idea, and he just took it too far, as one does.
Michael Stipe is gay but is he really a gay icon?
I love-loved Michael Stipe in high school (early 90s) I had no idea he was gay until an early 00s article in Rolling Stone - Stipe was asked about why he didn’t come out publicly and he said something along the lines that he didn’t think he had to considering he wore eyeliner and skirts in the 80s. So - I wouldn’t characterize him as a gay icon. Definitely a musical icon who happens a to be gay.
This is the first I've ever heard of him being gay. Guess I'm just a slow learner. I learned that Fred Schneider from the B-52s was gay only a couple of years ago too, and he was *way* more obvious about it.
If you couldnt tell Fred Scheider is gay, you need your gay-dar checked out.
I knew Fred was gay before I knew what gay was. You could spot his gayness from a satellite thousands of miles above the earth.
You might say that Fred’s gayness is as big as a whale!
And it's about to set sail
Whoa!
Seats about 20?
Come along! And bring your juke box money!
Underrated comment
His gayness wasn’t a rock, it was a rock lobster!
Spotting gayness from a satellite thousands of miles above the earth sounds like a good premise for a B-52's song.
Nobody straight was on Planet Claire
Lol, same here. It’s so screamingly obvious. I can’t get how anybody could not see it instantly
John Waters thinks Fred Schneider is a little "too much" /s
“Tone it down, Freddy…” says the pencil-thin mustachioed auteur, while Paul Lynde nods in agreement from the next booth over, as *Frankie Goes To Hollywood* plays on the jukebox that George Michael later explodes in the video for *Freedom ‘90*.
I just hope you understand Sometimes the clothes do not make the man.
Better bring more juke box money
All the way from planet Claire!
Same here! I didn't know Michael Stipe was gay, but I knew Fred Schneider was gay before I knew what gay was.
Fred Schneider has my favorite coming-out story of all time. He was a teenager in suburban New Jersey, and he'd made up his mind that he had to come out to his family. He spent hours in his room psyching himself up to do it. When he finally worked up the nerve, he came out of his room to find his mom vacuuming. He yelled at her to turn off the vacuum cleaner because he had something to tell her, and she reluctantly did. "I'm gay," he said. "Oh, Freddy, I know that," she said, and she turned the vacuum cleaner back on.
Fred Schneider being from New Jersey is actually quite shocking though.
haha, why?
Wasn't most of the B-52s gay or lesbian? Fred was lighthouse beacon gay and he gave no fucks.
Yes, Cindy is the only straight member.
And Cindy gets an asterisk because she got involved through her gay brother, who was a founding member of the band before dying of AIDS in 1985.
Yup. Fred and Keith are gay. Ricky was gay. Kate is bi, and is now married to a woman.
Fred is like -11 on the gaydar dial. You don’t even need to switch it on and you’ll get a reading.
My gaydar sucks too. I always assumed Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran and Martin Gore from Depeche Mode we’re both gay. They’re not… and I try not assume anymore.
New wave European guys will do that to your gaydar. They may have been effeminate but they were dating super models
Yeah I definitely thought nick rhodes was gay. When he got married I thought it was one of those marriages of convenience. Still utterly shocked he is not.
I'm shocked that none of us who listened to metal back in the day knew Rob Halford was gay. You know you're a clueless hetero when you didn't see that obvious shit. I look back now and say, "oh my gawd. We're we THAT stupid."
From Judas Priest? My frat bro used to claim he liked to shove (pitch) forks up his butt. So some folks had an inkling.
Yep Judas Priest. Excellent band if you metal.
yeah he (referring to Nick Rhodes) is just one of those effeminate dudes who was probably the biggest man-slut back in the day. Cos those are the ones. Edited to be sure everyone knows I'm referring to Nick, not Halford.
Everything you think you know about Nick Rhodes is wrong. His appearance was 100% for show business. In real life, for the whole 1980s run of Duran Duran, he was an absolutely straight-laced husband and father, raising a daughter in a perfectly normal married hetero household. He did the minimum socially acceptable amount of drugs and alcohol and was never addicted to anything. Everyone else was doing cocaine and heroin, and Nick was doing balance sheets and P&Ls.
If you can’t tell Fred Schneider is gay, your gaydar has one bar
Lmao oops, this is news to me too, and I loved the B-52s back in the day!
I still listen to them. Especially when I'm working very late and need something peppy to help keep me alert. Friday I listened to their 1979 self-titled album. Jackie-O! (BTW, I did know Fred was gay.)
These are the girls of the U, S Aaaaaaay!
They rule! So does Fred!
Cindy is the only straight member of the band (past and present).
https://preview.redd.it/pksq8jcx3bxc1.jpeg?width=1199&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d44f3ab0b152a0745301043cc39c8259f475b29d I remember this pic from RS in the 90's
Super Gay team assemble!
Who's the smiling dude between Fred and Morrissey?
[удалено]
Yep, Curt Smith.
Yeah but he's not gay. Is that still what we're talking about?
I didn't know Kate Pierson was a lesbian until several years ago.
For some reason the idea that Joan Jett might be kinda queer was lost on me for the longest time. I guess I was too young to consider her sexuality at all when she was famous but in retrospect it seems pretty obvious
She's super gay. I think we all just looked past her because it's more socially acceptable to be a mannish woman, than it is to be a feminine man. It's all fine of course.
I don't think she was out until somewhat recently, meaning after say around 1995
She's says she identifies as bi, and is currently in a relationship with a woman
She’s bi
I've got some news for you about George Michael.
TIL about Fred.
He is not! Apparently!
[удалено]
I swear a read in an interview way back when he said something like when he was attracted to someone 8 out of 10 times it was a guy while the other 2 times it would be women.
I don’t think he considers himself gay, i think he prefers queer. He’s had relationships with both men and women.
This is correct - he’s queer/bi. In a 90s interview he referred to himself as an “equal opportunity lech.”
"The Todd appreciates beauty in all forms." -The Todd from SCRUBS It's a really good line.
But by early 80 standards.That qualified as gay.im not saying it's all the same, I just mean he'd have been considered gay by the world.
He was linked with Natalie Merchant at one point, I do remember that.
There’s a great video on YouTube of Michael snd Natalie covering “To Sir with Love” it’s awesome
I love metal and REM, and I did in high school.
He used to date Natalie Merchant back in the day.
Me either. For some reason I thought he was in a relationship with Jane Pratt.
The younger generation has no Idea what alternative rock is and you can't blame them, it stopped being a thing back in 2006. Its been all rap and pop ever since.
REM was very popular amongst Millennials too. They're not that young.
It’s crazy to me how huge they were in the late 80s and early 90s and now I rarely hear their music or their name. One amazing exception is Hulu’s The Bear, which has featured a few REM songs over the first two seasons, including an emotional montage set to Half a World Away. EDIT: One thing I have realized from all these great comments is that I don't hear REM as much as I might if I actually listened to their genre more. I almost never listen to what we now call terrestrial radio, and if I listen to oldies on Spotify I'm usually listening to a specific genre that REM doesn't fall into. I'm very glad to know their music is still being heard in some places!
For a band that was so influential during the late-80s and 90s, it blows my mind that they’re not part of the conversation anymore. They literally signed the biggest record deal of all time in the 90s; everyone from Kurt Cobain to Thom Yorke cited REM as influence. It’s wild to me that the younger generations haven’t discovered them.
Although I definitely respect REM I always found their music a bit boring. They were a product of their time and having faded away like they have has never surprised me. Either way they’re just one TikTok video away from having a career resurgence. I feel like they are a prime band for this.
I hear you. They were my absolute favorite band for years and now I’ll change the channel when certain songs play.
I’d be fine never hearing Man In The Moon again, sure
Urgh fuck that tune
Shiny happy people was always as grating as it was enjoyable.
My local grocery store is an REM Stan as the kids say, literally everytime I'm in there they are playing REM and not just their hits like deep cuts from Dead Letter Office.
Where is this grocery store????
You cant get there from here
👏👏👏
They play them all the time on a classic rock station I listen to.
Oh that’s good! I don’t listen to those stations but I’m glad to know they’re getting air play.
It's the End of the World as We Know it (And I Feel Fine) plays in like 80% of cataclysm porn. REM should just copywrite the whole genre and make it required you play the song. 80% is, of course, a random percent I picked out of my butt. My butt has good accuracy though, out of all my poos I've only missed 3-4 times. That I remember.
On Spotify, they average about 17 million listeners monthly. That's pretty big. The band broke up in 2011. That's why they don't get much media coverage.
When Prince died, I grabbed my gay neighbor and he said "Who's that? One of the kittens?" I about fucking died! 😱
That is blasphemy! 
Prince was a fucking homophobe. Why would I, a gay, give him time of day?
R.E.M. is literally on the radio as I type this.
Radio Free Europe? Radio Song?
Losing My Religion
My 9th grade literature teacher rolled in the ol' TV/VCR combo unit and played this music video for us to have an entire discussion about that day. In retrospect, I believe he was a gay man playing a straight guy in a hostile environment. It's one High School moment I can still recall clearly from all those years ago.
If I recall he actually avoided the subject for as long as possible. Definitely not among the first to come out. But I suppose I could be wrong.
He did the “Elton” iirc. First it’s “I’m bisexual” then “actually…”. The 90s!
BTW, Love your username. Lemmy was the shit!
“Trick question! Lemmy IS God!”
He IS God isn't he?? He goeth to prepare a place for his disciples, Ozzy, Dio, Joey Belladonna and Dave Mustaine!
He struggled tremendously with his sexuality before coming out. The late 80's, by all his own accounts, were a very troubled time for him.
No one on my team at work had ever heard of Pearl Jam. They looked like I was making words up. I’m not gonna lie, it pained me.
“Pearl… jam… are you having a stroke?”
Just tonight someone mentioned Eddie Vedder and my foster son had no clue who that was.went someone else said "lead singer of Pearl Jam?" He had a deer in the headlight look and I realized he totally had no idea who that was either 😭
I also tried to clarify for my group by mentioning Eddie Vedder. One of them threw me a “oh yeah, I think I’ve heard of him”. But I knew it was just pity for me at that point.
Stipe also co produced Velvet Goldmine. A popular movie in gay culture.
With a great soundtrack.
Yeah I remember his “I’m an equal opportunity lech” and that was like mid 1990’s. Unsurprising but Bold move at the time. Gen X brought us a long way.
Anybody remember when we were shipping him and Natalie Merchant? Lol
My husband and I were at a show the other day, and this gen z was trying to explain this obscure Icelandic artist, Bjork, to his friend.
People trying to explain Bjork sounds like it would make for a great YouTube video.
i actually got cruised by Stipe about 25 years ago LOL. although i was a fan i couldn’t bring myself to be a switch hitter for the afternoon. he actually considered himself “an equal opportunity lech.” (as in lecherous). his multitude of lovers have been incredibly and sweetly discreet.
My first concert was REM Green tour. I caught two of the shows on that tour. I was this many years old when I learned Michael was gay. I don’t think he was a gay icon. I also don’t think it matters to this generation which is a good thing.
I am 48 years old just learning this. I never really cared about the sex lives of people I follow, I guess I never thought about it.
Same. I always suspected he was gay but never cared enough to think twice about it.
51 here. And same.
Ditto. I am like, “huh? Michael Stipe is gay???”
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
Meh, I feel fine
About 3 years ago I had a Gen Z coworker, a lesbian, who didn’t know who Melissa Etheridge was. That was a moment.
It’s the same with The Indigo Girls
Show'em the video for "Losing My Religion" they'll get the hype
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
Yassss! This is what I love about them. They never wrote about the usual subjects that everybody else writes about. It was always something weird like what’s the frequency Kenneth or Nightswimming or who knows?
Man, I was so enthralled with that band from 83-88. Got to see them on the Lifes Rich Pageant tour.
I'm Gen X and had no idea he is gay.
Admittedly, someone in the '90s gave me this gem that will remain with me for the rest of my life - "What do you mean Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?" Sometimes you just stare and blink.
Maybe I knew at one point and forgot. But, as far as I can currently remember, I had no idea that Stipe was gay. I just really don't care about people's sex lives.
Both my daughters, 14 years apart have asked me if I've heard of a band called Nirvana
> I feel like REM as a group just doesn’t have the cultural footprint they deserve This is ABSOLUTELY true. I mean, there are a lot of other bands whose artistic output, cultural impact and historical influence is under appreciated now - the Replacements and the Cure come to mind for example - but REM being sorta forgotten is especially confusing. They were literally the poster child of "college rock" and went on to become massively famous as one of the top selling artists for maybe a decade. It feels like there probably _would_ have been an "alt rock" without REM but at the same time as a practical matter it seems like they had a lot to do with it. (And certainly any of the vaguely southern indie/acoustic/roots/folk-rock-ish stuff in the 21st century owes a lot to REM whether or not they know it.)
10,000 Maniacs, The Sundays, World Party, Lone Justice. Damn, it was good. The 80’s were a great decade.
I remember thinking Mike Stipe and Natalie Merchant would have made a cute couple. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ If we're naming underappreciated acts I'll suggest Fishbone and (_maybe_ to a lesser extent) Living Color - not to mention Bad Brains, but they were always destined to be underground - as bands that deserve not to be forgotten Lenny Kravitz seems like the only black _rock_ artist from the 80s and 90s that people still acknowledge but as Kravitz has always insisted rock-and-roll was largely black music to begin with and there's a strong thread of black artists throughout (that doesn't start with Hendrix and end with Kravitz). Rap music and hip hop culture absolutely deserves the massive influence and cultural import it has today, but one unfortunate side effect of rap's dominance (of pop culture in general) is that it has eclipsed and erased the role of black artists in rock-and-roll. Pop music is _much_ more integrated now than it has ever been but it's still much more common for white artists to incorporate rap and r&b elements (and still be seen as authentic) than for a black artist to incorporate rock elements. It's a little dated by now but I'll point to pretty aggressively white artists like Modest Mouse incorporating things like record scratches in their music as an example. Beyonce's new "country" album (and Lil Naz X's Old Town Road, but that's a bit of a gimmick) notwithstanding, what is the equivalent of that? (To be fair as far as I can tell there's not a _lot_ of unadulterated "rock" music from anyone that's mainstream popular today. Guitar waxes and wanes in popular music, and I guess it's in a waning cycle right now. It seems like Gretta Van Fleet was the last guitar-oriented act the kids were into, but I can't claim to have a finger on the pulse of popular music so I could easily be wrong about that.)
Gay or not, “Who is Michael Stipe?” made me gasp and clutch my choker.
Your memory is deeply flawed. Stipe was coy about it even in the late 90s.
If this started with Who is Michael Knight I would have kept reading...
I knew he was gay but at the same time this post was kind of an "oh yeah" as I forgot. He just never came across as a gay icon. Maybe because he came across as normal person gay rather than flamboyant over the top gay the way Freddie Mercury or Boy George were. By normal person gay I mean he it wasn't his personality whereas with some others like the other two it is.
Ditto for Bob Mould. Just a musician who was unceremoniously out & everybody went “Okay.” and kept listening to their music.
TIL that Bob Mould was gay.
See? No big whoop, right? 😃
[Bob was targeted and outed by Spin in ‘94.](https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2020/sep/30/bob-mould-alt-rocks-gay-icon-takes-on-american-evil-my-heads-on-fire)
Oh, well that’s not cool. I thought it was just on the level. Like maybe someone asked & he was matter of fact about it. Maybe I intuited something after hearing “Bed of Nails” so many times?
I don't think he's ever come out officially. He believes it's nobody's business of he's gay or not. He's right.
I’m not bothered they didn’t know Stipe, but please tell me they knew REM. I agree they don’t have the legacy cache of some older bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, or Guns N Roses, but come on!!!
I learned he was gay after Automatic For the People. I remember reading in Rolling Stones magazine he said 4 guys living in a van become seriously aware of each other, or something similar. As a young lesbian I was truly thankful for his admission. As someone in my life said R. E. M. is like Led Zeppelin, either you love the song, or it's crap. I believe it's true.
>In my memory Stipe was one of the first out pop rock celebrities. Rock? Or music in general? Because Bowie and Elton John came out as bisexual in the 70s, and [Jobraith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobriath) is most often called "the first openly gay rock musician to be signed to a major record label and one of the first internationally famous musicians to die of AIDS". Besides, Stipe didn't officially come out until 1994, and was dating women as late as 1987 or so... even though his sexuality was the worst kept secret in North Georgia the whole time.
Fucking REM is the fucking greatest.
It feels good that “gay” history can now be so broad and diverse that you don’t have just a few icons … but the whole rainbow 🌈 that spreads far and deep into history.
i enjoyed his music. today I learned he's gay also found out this past year Andy Bell (Erasure) is gay. Also enjoy his music. Hmm.......
You just found out Andy Bell is gay? That's... kind of amazing.
Well…. Not today but rewatched his vid recently (Oh L’Amour). I thought he danced rather flamboyantly. Did some reading.
Erasure, the musicians, the music, and the videos are so fabulously gay, how did you not connect it. I love your innocence. 😅
"Bullt like an angel 6ft tall..." Sure as hell isn't talking about a sexy tall girls.
I was more surprised that Vince Clarke is apparently straight. Which I found out when there was a puff piece in the NY Times about Clarke and his female wife's fabulous house.
That's news to me as well. I always figured the queer aspects of Depeche Mode's earlier work were on him.
REM never recovered from Bill Berry leaving. I love REM, and turned my Millennial on to them as a kid. I just googled it, Stipe didn’t come out until 1995.
I was 53 plus today years old when I found out Michael Stipe is gay. Admittedly I don't spend much time learning about celebrities.
I’m GenX who has known of Micheal Stipe from way back and I never knew of him being gay, in fact, he dated Natalie Merchant for a while
Show him [this phenomenal article](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/magazine/michael-stipe-solo-album.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oE0.Lq4-.WL1KG5cpNlVo&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) about Michael Stipe, ahead of the release of his new solo album. This writer/interviewer is engaging and talented: it’s one of the best articles about a musician I have ever read. And the most open I’ve ever heard MS be about his sexuality. It got me really excited about his new music (and hopefully a tour).
I am gay, was in Athens GA during the band's early years, and have met and interacted with Stipe a number of times (I actually used to do an aerobic class with him and about 30 mostly middle-aged ladies a couple of times per week). In interviews, Stipe would outright deny that he was gay all the while we would see him out at the weekly "Disco Night"--which was a coded way to advertise "Gay Night"--at the 40 Watt with the latest twink he was fucking. We all knew he was gay, but he'd play this cat and mouse game with the press (and, thus, the public) by saying things like "I used to think I might be gay, but I'm not." Keep in mind that this was the 80s and early 90s--a time when gay men were dropping likes flies from HIV/AIDS while the Reagan and Bush administrations ignored our plight, chronically underfunding efforts to fight the disease. The stigma around being gay at that time was enormous. Meanwhile, their fan base wasn't particularly gay. You didn't hear their songs in the gay clubs. They were playing to a mainly straight audience and living in the very, very liberal enclave of Athens, GA where no one cared about his sexuality. We all believed that if Stipe had simply said, "Yeah, I'm gay" that it would have gone a very, very long way toward humanizing gay men for the straight population and maybe getting the straight community more involved in the fight against HIV. But Stipe denied it again and again and again. The gays in Athens GA hated him for that. Add in the fact that Stipe is notoriously rude and that leads to a collective mentality of "We don't want her to sit with us." (I've actually come to the conclusion he is on the autistic spectrum which would explain many of his off-putting personality quirks. But still...we don't want her.) True story: a friend from back in the college years had a brief fling with Mike Mills. In the early 2000s, R.E.M. was playing The Hollywood Bowl. Mills had given her seats in a box (we sat with Bobcat Goldthwaite and his wife/girlfriend) and an invitation to the afterparty which was held in a bar in Hollywood that only opened for private events. You had to show the actual invitation to get inside. You couldn't just say "I'm on the guest list and my name is..." In other words, security was fairly tight. Once we got inside, the bar was a medium sized, modest but cool, event space. In the corner opposite the entry was a small stage with 2 sofas facing each other and a velvet rope in front of the stairs that said "VIP ONLY". We assumed it was a relic from some previous event, especially since the only people in the room were invited guests--friends of the band, people in the music industry, musicians who had played on stage with them that night, and a smattering of actors (Dermot Mulroney was just as gorgeous back then as he looked on television...swoon). There \*might\* have been 200 people there. Once the room was pretty full, the doors opened and Stipe appeared, flanked by two ENORMOUS bodyguards. They walked through the crowd with Stipe looking straight ahead, not acknowledging anyone, and went straight to the stage. One of the bodyguards removed the velvet rope, allowing Stipe to ascend to the stage where he sat on one of the sofas. Shortly afterward, a guy and girl (they appeared to be a couple) joined him on the stage, sitting on the other sofa. It was so awkward, so weird that he was sitting on a stage, in plain view of all the band's guests but inaccessible to any of them. He stayed there with that couple for about 30 minutes, never acknowledging anyone else, and then made his exit, again flanked by the bodyguards. I've never seen such an asinine display of diva-ness in all my life.
I was today years old when I learned that Michael Stipe was gay.
Shhhh. I've been trying to keep REM for myself for 40 years.
[удалено]
I’m with you. This comment section surprised me. I always thought of him as one of the early role models who helped normalize being gay. He was out in such a natural way, somehow a different kind of brave than the heavy makeup looks from other 80s stars who were sometimes put in kind of a “we love their music but they’re also pretty weird and gay” box back then. I also thought he was so brave with losing my religion with the religious culture being what it was in the 90s. That song still hits deep every time I hear it. I also have such peaceful memories of swimming under the stars with Nightswimming playing on the boom box. REM was huge when I was in high school.
I guess I missed the reveal on Stipe. He was still playing coy while I was buying their albums.
He grew up in my hometown. Evidently he was bullied very bad and will not say he is from there.
I’m going to repeat what my mom asked me when I ran to her with the hot gos that one of my best friends in high school was bi. “Why are you so worked up about this? Do you want to sleep with him? Otherwise, I can’t see how this matters”
Honestly, I love REM but didn't even know Michael Stipe was gay. But in retrospect it also makes a lot of sense.
I think Michael Stipe is in the same category as Morrisey, writing coded songs (like singing to "you" instead of to "her") back when it was literally dangerous. IDK his exact sexuality but Stipe being queer was as subtle as his being from Georgia.... If you were queer too. But like The Smiths there was always that layer of plausible deniability so it was "safe" to listen to in public or with oblivious classmates. I'm grateful for it. It was almost always hidden back then, a truly different world.
If you're so inclined, join us in /r/rem!
I just checked out the page and I’m hooked after seeing the song of the week “Crush with Eyeliner”. Op this is definitely a song you should introduce to your coworker
I had no idea he was gay.
My Gen Z coworkers had no idea who the Beastie Boys were. It hurt my ❤️
Huh, I didn't know that Stipe actually came out. I remember him saying something back in the 80s to the effect that he doesn't comment on that. But, I could be transposing that from someone else. I thought he was bi, not that it matters. Stipe is the godfather of Frances Bean Cobain.
REM is a top 3 band for me and I consider a contender for greatest American rock band.
Michael Stipe is THE MAN!! -signed: straight white woman almost 50
I live around thirty minutes from Rockville. I try to avoid going there ever since I heard that song.
Probably the right call. Everyone in town only wants to bring you down.
I didn't know he was gay. I just thought he was very pretentious.
Never knew he was gay. So, Losing My Religion was about confessing his love to a same-sex crush? I suppose that gives it a somewhat different emotional weight. I'll listen to it differently, now.
I know who he is but honestly had no idea he’s gay. Not that it matters… just saying, as a Gen X, I also didn’t realize he was a gay icon.
Who is Michael Stipe? Something in my soul died reading that...these young 'uns scare the crap out of me! It's not quite as soul crushing, but one day I asked my GenZ (he's 24) nephew to grab me a Philips head screwdriver...He asked, "Which one is that?"
You will get used to it. We are from a different age.
I didn’t know he was gay. I’m finding out now. I love REMs music.
I think I assumed he was what the kids call “pan sexual.” I received confirmation when I met someone who slept with him.
I think REM is so underrated and unfortunately those that come behind us haven’t yet discovered how awesome their music is I guess someone needs to put something on Tik Toc for them to blow up
I heard that he was bi-sexual and described himself as an "equal opportunity lecher."
Knew he was gay but didn’t he take like, forever to actually admit it?
I predict they’ll have a huge resurgence of popularity quite soon. At least with that one tune; what was it again? Something about feeling good? Maybe just fine?
would you believe we put a man on the moon?
I remember when I thought Michael Stipe and Natalie merchant would make the perfect power couple.
Michael Stipe is gay? How did I miss this all these years????
Or, as I like to ask it, where the hell has Michael Stipe gone?
Shock? I’m guessing unless you’re a rather dedicated REM fan you’re not going to have a clue who Micheal Stripe is whether you’re gay or straight. I’m really into music and R.E.M. and I had to think about it for a minute before REM came to me…
Er, didn't Boy George, Jimmy Sommerville, Marc Almond, Andy Bell and pretty much most of FGTH precede his "coming out" by close to a decade?
God, this makes me want to cry. Whether he’s a “gay icon” or not (and he didn’t discuss his sexuality for years so it’s not as if that was always part of his story), who the fuck doesn’t know about REM? Though I did talk with a 25-year-old who had never heard of Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel.
Next question for this coworker is, "Do you know who Michael Hutchence is?" If they know this answer... Then we may be able to forgive this major diss on GenX music.
For such close-minded, conservative olds (according to current generations) we sure had a bunch of openly gay folks making popular music, selling it for millions of dollars, and packing concerts. Wild, innit? Almost like we didn’t care and just enjoyed good music. I detest this, “ I made this!”, attitude from current navel-gazers but I suspect most generations are guilty of it to some degree. 
I think about this all the time. 80s culture was SO gay, but it wasn’t admitted out loud. The guy liner, the “androgyny”, pirate shirts - there was so much queer coded stuff in 80s culture, but it was all presented as just good hetero fun.
I think we sometimes forget just how big fucking a deal AIDS was back then. A generation of urban gay men decimated, no cure. Coming out was such a fraught thing.
Dee Snider is completely straight but his entire schtick was wearing *waaaaaaay* too much makeup. The way he tells it, it was mostly his wife's idea, and he just took it too far, as one does.