It was at the end of 2022 when we learned the news that Michael Stipethe one who was leader of REM, was going to release his first solo album. At first, the initial idea was that the album would be published in 2023, but we have already learned that we still have to wait a little longer for this work to see the light.
“I’m working on a solo album, my first. I’m collaborating with a lot of different musicians and each of those songs, if I get my way, which I think I will because I’m paying for them, will be very different.”he declared in December of last year.
And the artist added: “For the first time in my adult life, I have no contract with anyone but myself. Then I can do whatever I want. Anyway, there will be a visual representation for each of the songs and it should be ready next year. I hope to build little by little”.
It was now, during an interview with The New York Times, that Stipe revealed: “Now I have a deadline. I could keep working on this record for a decade and let my insecurities get the best of me. We can say… that I finished the songs”.
The singer has also stated that the reasons why the release has been delayed have been his personal problems, including family circumstances, house moves and even a COVID infection.
Since REM broke up, Stipe has done work as a solo artist, but has not yet released a full project. Over the past five years, she has shared a few singles and collaborated with groups like Big Red Machine on No Time For Love Like Now. In 2022, he also teamed up with Mykki Blanco in Family Ties.
After being in a highly successful group for decades, Stipe has decided to follow his own rules and take the recording process at a leisurely pace. Earlier this year he spent a week at the legendary Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, New York, but due to the aforementioned personal issues, his work pace has slowed in recent months.
He September 21, 2011, REM announced its dissolution through its website. The group was formed in 1980 when the singer Michael Stipe met the guitarist Peter Buck in Athens, Georgia, at the record store where Buck worked. After recruiting the bassist Mike Mills and the drummer Bill BerryREM released their first single, Radio Free Europe in 1981, followed in 1982 by the EP Chronic Town. They have been recognized as the most influential alternative rock band in history, in which artists such as Sonic Youth, Pavement, Nirvana and Radiohead have been inspired, and for having achieved several platinum albums of great commercial success, but always maintaining their own identity.
Throughout their career the band has released 15 studio albums: Murmur (1983), Reckoning (1984), Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), Document (1987), Green (1988), Out of Time (1991), Automatic For The People (1992), Monster (1994), New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), Up (1998), Reveal (2001), around the sun (2004), Accelerate (2008) and Collapse Into Now (2011). They have sold more than 90 million records worldwide.
