Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #788094 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Amazon.com Review
Now in its second edition, It Crawled from the South is an encyclopedic, non-linear, mostly non-hagiographic book about those enigmatic guys from Athens, Georgia. Marcus Gray furnishes thumbnail sketches of each member, as well as chapters on the band's recording history, politics, album packaging, and regional accent. The author is also fearless enough to venture into the black hole of Michael Stipe's lyrics. He doesn't, to be sure, make sense of Stipe's associative rambles, and the singer himself lets Gray off the hook by confessing that "three-quarters of my lyrics probably come from overheard conversations. I steal a lot, basically. Someone will say something really interesting, and I'll write it down." Okay. But we'd still like to know what a moral kiosk is.

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Customer Reviews

In a league of it's own
Beyond compare. Aside, obviously, from his accomplishments in ammassing a wealth of information and trivia the chief outstanding feature of the book is the author's ability to convey his admiration and enthusiasm for the band while remaining somehow detatched and clear-sighted enough to criticise and poke fun of them. Volumes of this sort are typically so laden by melodramatic praise that the fawning writer makes his work unreadable. In short 'It Crawled From the South', is not only a break from the norm, but is also a spectacular piece when viewed out of context and in isolation.

well, it's a good book...
I've read this book cover to cover and then gone back to read my favorite bits later. It was my introduction to the details of R.E.M.'s history, and I think it certainly served that purpose well. And I enjoyed the writing style and the commentary almost as much as I enjoyed all the insanely random little bits of information.

The R.E.M. book, Period.
A wonderful resource. Can be used as a reference, or novel-type of a read. Covers everything you wanted to know about R.E.M. and more. The revised edition is wonderfully thorough and well-researched. This is the R.E.M. Bible.