The punk-rock ethos was "Do it yourself. Anyone can do this. We're not sent from the heavens."

The punk-rock ethos was "Do it yourself. Anyone can do this. We're not sent from the heavens."

In fact, a lot of critics seemed to consider R.E.M. the first American music since the '60s to break out on its own and develop a stand-alone sound.

There tend to be two different drives that lead young people toward music. One is that music provides an escape; it takes you away from the unhappiness or torture of where you are and makes you feel less alienated-you believe there is a place you fit in somewhere else. The other is a sort of transcendent, spiritual feeling in the purity of music.

We're kind of an international phenomenon.

Love, love will be my strongest weapon

Because the casual music listeners are the ones who turn on the radio and they don't really care what's playing, they just know that they kinda like it or it's easy to drive to or it's easy to sing along to or whatever.