[Cover photo credit to Sandra Lee Phipps]
Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, R.E.M.’s debut EP Chronic Town will be released for the first time ever as a standalone CD with extensive liner notes by the original Producer Mitch Easter (Let’s Active). It will be released in three different formats: CD, Picture Disc, and Cassette on August 19, 2022 via I.R.S./UMe.
As a debut release, R.E.M.’s Chronic Town didn’t quite fit into the constraints of what was played on the radio, so R.E.M. helped create their own genre, College Rock, following their single “Radio Free Europe”.
Mitch Easter comments:
One might fancifully say that Chronic Town was the sound of an expedition, ready for anything, setting forth. If R.E.M. ‘Radio Free Europe’ single was a signpost, the Chronic Town EP was the atlas.
Critically hailed both upon release and in retrospect, Chronic Town’s impact and influence on the future of Alternative music has been well attested.
