This is 99% Invisible.

Hey, I can't find that in the radio.

I'm Roman Mars.

Uh-uh.

You'll turn to that station.

I went to graduate school in Athens, Georgia, which is a great place to be from the ages

of about 18 to 25.

If you like going out to bars and listening to live music.

Even though Athens is a fairly small college town, it's had a huge and important music scene

for decades and the most famous band to come out of the Athens scene.

Undoubtedly was R-E-M.

To be provocative right from the start, I'm going to say that R-E-M's out of time is the

most politically important album in the history of the United States.

And this provocative is reporter Whitney Jones, though I have to say, I don't think out of

time is even the most important album in the history of R-E-M.

Actually my argument here has nothing to do with the music.

This isn't one of those, oh, it's a soundtrack to a generation or anything like that.

Out of time made such a huge impact because of its packaging.

The box that out of time originally came in led to a bill being passed in Congress and

an actual concrete law.

Let's go back to 1985.

The pop charts were full of prints and Shina Easton and the youth of America were being

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