Reveal: The Story of R.E.M

Rating:
Summary: Incredible (almost) flawless R.E.M. biography.
Review: I received this book as a gift for Christmas. To let you get a perspective on my review, I've been an R.E.M. fan for over 10 years and own every cd they've ever put out, and am generally obcessive when it comes to them. I've read all the previous books before that were mainly published when R.E.M. was in their heyday of Losing My Religion. I've even reviewed them, and found them to be full of misinformation, hearsay, etc. (Writing a bad review on one book even earned me a nasty email from the author!! lol)

But I digress. This book was incredible. It was well thought out and planned. It was completely linear - it only deviated from the timeline in the introduction to the book. Black approached writing this book as one would an academic research paper. He researched, researched, researched, and in his works sited he gave all credits where it was rightly due. I found out much I didn't know about R.E.M. in the early days. The great thing about this book is it's really recent, it goes up to right before Around the Sun came out, and addresses R.E.M.'s political leanings this year against the Iraq War.

I hate to use a overused cliche, but I couldn't put this book down all day. I had to read all through it. If you are a die hard R.E.M. fan, or know one, pick up this book as it's the definitive R.E.M. biography out there!!!

PS - The one flaw in the book is one picture was credited as being from "Out of Time" when it was clearly from the "Monster" era. But that's it!! Good stuff!