ROCK: Monster Music

Fame, alas, can insulate a performer from the masses. But nowadays when pop- music stars feel the need to get in touch with the public mood, they have only to log on to the nearest computer bulletin board. Which is precisely what Michael Stipe did a few weeks ago. The lead singer of the rock band R.E.M., based in Athens, Georgia, spent a few hours online to answer questions from his fans and satisfy his curiosity. "The record's almost done, and I'm bored," he typed. Folks peppered him with queries. What would the group's highly anticipated new CD sound like? "Like punk rock," he replied. "But loud."

R.E.M.'s new CD, Monster, out next week, does indeed blast with the boldest, brawniest music the band has ever recorded. In an interview with Time, Stipe described the new sound succinctly: "We wanted noise." Added R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills: "When you're in a band long enough, you want to try different things. On past albums we had been exploring acoustic instruments, trying to use the piano and mandolin, and we did it about all we wanted to do it. And you come back to the fact that playing loud electric-guitar music is about as fun as music can be."

Before MTV became the sugar daddy of rock 'n' roll, before Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder was even out of grade school, before the term alternative rock was trampled into the mud at the overhyped Woodstock '94, there was R.E.M. The , band, formed in 1980, is known for its artful, challenging music as well as its emotive, elliptical lyrics. Rather than succumbing to common-denominator tastes and releasing music that is too easily accessible, it has followed its own eccentric muse. In doing so, it set a standard for such alternative bands of the '90s as Pearl Jam and Offspring. Says Denise Sullivan, author of the book R.E.M. -- Talk About the Passion: "They've done everything their own way, on their own terms, and that's really rare."

The quartet -- Stipe, Mills, guitarist Peter Buck and drummer Bill Berry -- met in Athens in the late '70s. It was not altogether friendship at first sight. "We were definitely in different camps in school," says Berry. "((Mills)) was kind of the nerdy, preppie, straight-A student who hung out with the other straight-A students, and I was more the pot-smoking cool dude who hung around with the seedy element." As a teenager, Stipe wore unstylish corduroy pants with ribs as thick as ropes and drenched his hair with mustard. Despite that -- or perhaps because of it -- Buck found Stipe's "weird" taste in music appealing. All four eventually linked up at a party, discovered they shared musical interests and started a band.