I must be a geezer here but I sort of lost interest in them once Stipe cut off his hair and stopped hiding behind the microphone....he's like a gay Bono..preachy preachy..Murmur and "Radio Free Europe"....I was living in Manhattan at the time and saw them at either the Ritz or China Club.....nice act. Probably around 1983 or 1984????.....
Remember when Stipe was at some music awards show many years ago? They won a bunch of awards. Every time he went up on stage he would take off a tee shirt that had a phrase on it, displaying another tee shirt with a new phrase. Stuff like, "Ban Handguns", "End Aparthite", etc.
Now these guys can't even act like men and admit they got drunk and stupid.