Talk:R.E.M.

Is it just me or is this article’s lead section quite lengthy? I haven’t tagged it with {{lead too long}} as I may well be missing something/there may be a reason for it, but I thought it was worth noting on the talk page. Best, ^user:A smart kitten_meow 09:25, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

It's maybe a little long, but from looking at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, I don't see absolute or relative limits on the lead. This is 759 words, which is a little over a five minute read and with an article body of c. 8102, this is about 9% the length of the article. Seems long-ish but not outrageous to me. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:39, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

I see a back-and-forth about whether these appearances qualify as reunions. They don’t, in my opinion, regardless of what journalists try to paint them as. Plus, “one-off” followed by two instances? Come on… Courtesy pinging @Mewhen123: and @WereWolf:. Seasider53 (talk) 00:51, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm posting here since more people probably follow the band's main page than List of R.E.M. concert tours.

But, on that page, I think there should be an addition for the 1991 Out of Time promotional tour. I already have the basics written and a few refs, but since I'm not a huge fan of the band, I wanted a few second opinions. Across a few R.E.M. articles, most of them state something along the lines of "R.E.M. did not conduct any tours from late 1989 to early 1995." This is a bit misleading however, and here's my reasoning (and what the aforementioned entry would probably look like on the tours page):

When the band's seventh album, Out of Time, was released in March 1991, R.E.M. refused to extensively tour behind it; however, they made various promotional appearances on radio programs and television shows. In between those appearances, the band conducted a mini-tour of Europe and the US (which contained both festival appearances and standalone shows). Not including the band's one-off promotional appearances (such as on Saturday Night Live and Rockline), only a dozen shows were played in 1991.

FYI - I wouldn't use setlist.fm as a source obviously, but for context, it shows that they played 12 normal live shows in 1991 in a relatively short period, March 5 to June 15 (here). Also, their promo tour in 1998 (which is indeed listed on the tours page) only consisted of 15 or so shows, just a few more than the promo tour in 1991. Xanarki (talk) 19:06, 20 April 2025 (UTC)