Very few musicians managed to define an entire genre from Madonna to the Beatles,

but that's how so many feel about these two leaders of R.E.M., Michael Stipe and Mike Mills.

They took REM from a college venue circuit in Athens, Georgia,

to really introducing alternative rock to the entire world,

moving over 85 million albums across 15 different studio records, three Grammy Awards and

naturally taking their rightful place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

They're joining the beat today marking the 25th anniversary of the quadruple platinum album

Monster, which topped the Billboard charts and is back with a remastered box set.

Here they are, R-A.M. members, Michael Stipe

and Mike Mills. Thanks for coming on the beat. Thank you. Thank you, Ari. This is exciting.

So many things to get into, but let's start, of course, with the album monster and what it means

to have the anniversary and reconnect this version with fans. It's super weird for us to look back 25 years

of the century and look at who we

were in our early 30s and what we had accomplished at that point. This is a record that was very,

very weird for us out of the box, but it was kind of intentionally so. You guys like being

weird? Well, not intentionally. Yes. Okay, yes. Yeah, sure. Sure. I mean, not being

traditional, normal, corporate.

We'd like to take left turns and throw the fancy curveball now and again. So a lot of times fans look back at the work more than you do. You made a deliberate choice to engage this. When you look back at it, however you do, listening to it, seeing the reception, thinking about it, what stands out now or what's different now? Well, the fact that we broke up, you know, eight years ago gives us a chance to reflect,

and it's okay that we broke up,

you know, eight years ago gives us a chance to reflect and it's okay that we're not making records

currently so we can look back instead of Ford, which is our normal operation. But looking back at

that record, I think, what an audacious thing it was. It was a really a balsy move for us and I was

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