R.E.M.
R.E.M. in concert in Padova, Italy, in July 2003. From left to right: touring musician Scott McCaughey, Michael Stipe, touring drummer Bill Rieflin, and Peter Buck.
Background information
Also known as	Hornets Attack Victor Mature,[1] Bingo Hand Job,[2] It Crawled from the South[3]
Origin	Athens, Georgia, United States
Genres	Alternative rock, college rock, jangle pop
Years active	1980 (1980)–2011 (2011)
Labels	Hib-Tone, I.R.S., New West, Warner Bros.
Associated acts	Automatic Baby, The Baseball Project, Hindu Love Gods, The Minus 5, Tuatara, Tired Pony
Website	remhq.com
Past members
Bill Berry Peter Buck Mike Mills Michael Stipe

R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's unclear vocals. R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. The single was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years through subsequent releases, constant touring, and the support of college radio. Following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit in 1987 with the single "The One I Love". The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.

By the early 1990s, when alternative rock began to experience broad mainstream success, R.E.M. was viewed by subsequent acts such as Nirvana and Pavement as a pioneer of the genre and released its two most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), which veered from the band's established sound. R.E.M.'s 1994 release, Monster, was a return to a more rock-oriented sound. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract in history. The following year, Bill Berry left the band, while Buck, Mills, and Stipe continued the group as a trio. Through some changes in musical style, the band continued its career into the next decade with mixed critical and commercial success. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. R.E.M. disbanded in September 2011, announcing the split on its website.^[4]

History[link]

Formation: 1980–1981[link]

In January 1980, Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and The Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself."^[5] Stipe and Buck soon met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry,^[6] who had played music together since high school.^[7] The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it".^[5] Their still-unnamed band spent several months rehearsing and played its first show on April 5, 1980 at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church in Athens. After considering names like "Twisted Kites", "Cans of Piss", and "Negro Wives", the band settled on "R.E.M.", which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary.^[8]

Record producer Mitch Easter (far left) was important in defining the band's sound, producing all of their material through 1983

The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group.^[9] They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens.^[10] R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene.^[11] Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous since a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group had to tour in an old blue van driven by Holt, and the band members lived on a food allowance of $2 a day.^[12]

During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out.^[13] Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.^[14]

I.R.S. Records and cult success: 1982–1986[link]

	"Radio Free Europe" noicon Originally released as the band's debut single on Hib-Tone in 1981, "Radio Free Europe" was re-recorded for R.E.M.'s debut album Murmur in 1983.
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R.E.M. recorded the Chronic Town EP with Mitch Easter in October 1981, and planned to release it on a new indie label named Dasht Hopes.^[15] However, I.R.S. Records acquired a demo of the band's first recording session with Easter that had been circulating for months.^[16] The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records in favor of I.R.S., with whom they signed a contract in May 1982. I.R.S. released Chronic Town that August as its first American release.^[17] A positive review of the EP by NME praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."^[18]

I.R.S. first paired R.E.M. with producer Stephen Hague to record its debut album. Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied, and the band members asked the label to let them record with Easter.^[19] I.R.S. agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record the song "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. permitted the group to record the album with Dixon and Easter.^[20] Because of its bad experience with Hague, the band recorded the album via a process of negation, refusing to incorporate rock music clichés such as guitar solos or then-popular synthesizers, in order to give its music a timeless feel.^[21] The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim upon its release in 1983, with Rolling Stone listing the album as its record of the year.^[22] The album reached number 36 on the Billboard album chart.^[23] A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the album's lead single and reached number 78 on the Billboard singles chart in 1983.^[24] Despite the acclaim awarded the album, Murmur sold only about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.^[25]

R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983,^[26] during which the group performed a new, unnamed song.^[27] The piece, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning (1984), which was also recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NME's Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet".^[28] While Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the US album charts—an unusually high chart placing for a college rock band at the time—scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in Britain.^[29]

Michael Stipe (left) and Peter Buck (right) on stage in Ghent, Belgium, during R.E.M.'s 1985 tour.

The band's third album, Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), demonstrated a change in direction. Instead of Dixon and Easter, R.E.M. chose producer Joe Boyd, who had worked with Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, to record the album in England. The band members found the sessions unexpectedly difficult, and were miserable due to the cold winter weather and what they considered to be poor food;^[30] the situation brought the band to the verge of break-up.^[31] The gloominess surrounding the sessions ended up providing the context for the album itself. Lyrically, Stipe began to create storylines in the mode of Southern mythology, noting in a 1985 interview that he was inspired by "the whole idea of the old men sitting around the fire, passing on ... legends and fables to the grandchildren".^[32] Fables of the Reconstruction became the highest-selling record released by I.R.S. in America at that point. However, the album performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded.^[33] As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio. Meanwhile, I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band's reluctance to achieve mainstream success.^[34]

For its fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp producer Don Gehman. The result, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986) featured Stipe's vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Peter Buck related, "Michael is getting better at what he's doing, and he's getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice."^[35] The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and eventually peaked at number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single "Fall on Me" also picked up support on commercial radio.^[36] The album was the band's first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies.^[37] While American college radio remained R.E.M.'s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio.^[38] Following the success of Lifes Rich Pageant, I.R.S. issued Dead Letter Office, a compilation of tracks recorded by the band during their album sessions, many of which had either been issued as B-sides or left unreleased altogether. Shortly thereafter, I.R.S. compiled R.E.M.'s music video catalog (except "Wolves, Lower") as the band's first video release, Succumbs.

Breakthrough success: 1987–1993[link]

Don Gehman was unable to produce R.E.M.'s fifth album, so he suggested the group work with Scott Litt.^[39] Litt would be the producer for the band's next five albums. Document (1987) featured some of Stipe's most openly political lyrics, particularly on "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Exhuming McCarthy", which were reactions to the conservative political environment of the 1980s under American President Ronald Reagan.^[40] Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in his review of the album, "'Document' is both confident and defiant; if R.E.M. is about to move from cult-band status to mass popularity, the album decrees that the band will get there on its own terms."^[41] Document was R.E.M.'s breakthrough album, and the first single "The One I Love" charted in the Top 20 in the US, UK, and Canada.^[23] By January 1988, Document had become the group's first album to sell a million copies.^[42] In light of the band's breakthrough, the December 1987 cover of Rolling Stone declared R.E.M. "America's Best Rock & Roll Band".^[43]

Frustrated that its records did not see satisfactory overseas distribution, R.E.M. left I.R.S. when its contract expired and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records.^[44] In 1988, I.R.S. released the compilation Eponymous, which included most of the band's singles and a number of rarities. The band's 1988 Warner Bros. debut, Green, was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, and showcased the group experimenting with its sound.^[45] The record's tracks ranged from the upbeat first single "Stand" (a hit in the United States),^[46] to more political material, like the rock-oriented "Orange Crush" and "World Leader Pretend", which address the Vietnam War and the Cold War, respectively.^[47] Green has gone on to sell four million copies worldwide.^[48] The band supported the album with its biggest and most visually developed tour to date, featuring back-projections and art films playing on the stage.^[49] After the Green tour, the band members unofficially decided to take the following year off, the first extended break in the band's career.^[50] R.E.M. released the video album Tourfilm in 1990 to document the Green World Tour and Warner Bros. also issued the music video compilation Pop Screen to collect videos from the Document and Green period.

	"Losing My Religion" noicon Sample of "Losing My Religion" from Out of Time (1991). The mandolin-driven song became R.E.M.'s biggest American hit, peaking at number four on the Billboard charts.
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R.E.M. reconvened in mid-1990 to record its seventh album, Out of Time. In a departure from Green, the band members often wrote the music with non-traditional rock instrumentation including mandolin, organ, and acoustic guitar instead of adding them as overdubs later in the creative process.^[51] Released in March 1991, Out of Time was the band's first album to top both the US and UK charts.^[23] The record eventually sold 4.2 million copies in the US alone,^[52] and about 12 million copies worldwide by 1996.^[48] The album's lead single "Losing My Religion" was a worldwide hit that received heavy rotation on radio, as did the music video on MTV.^[53] "Losing My Religion" was R.E.M.'s highest-charting single in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard charts.^[23] "There've been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual," Mills said years later. "If you want to talk about life changing, I think 'Losing My Religion' is the closest it gets".^[54] The album's second single, "Shiny Happy People" (one of three songs on the record to feature vocals from Kate Pierson of fellow Athens band The B-52's), was also a major hit, reaching number 10 in the US and number six in the UK.^[23] Out of Time garnered R.E.M. seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards, the most nominations of any artist that year. The band won three awards: one for Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion", Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.^[55] R.E.M. did not tour to promote Out of Time; instead the group played a series of one-off shows, including an appearance taped for an episode of MTV Unplugged^[56] and released music videos for each song on the video album This Film Is On.

After spending some months off, R.E.M. returned to the studio in 1991 to record its next album. Late in 1992, the band released Automatic for the People. Though the group had intended to make a harder-rocking album after the softer textures of Out of Time,^[57] the somber Automatic for the People "[seemed] to move at an even more agonized crawl", according to Melody Maker.^[58] The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of ... turning thirty", according to Buck.^[59] Several songs featured string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Considered by a number of critics (as well as by Buck and Mills) to be the band's best album,^[60] Automatic for the People reached numbers one and two on UK and US charts, respectively, and generated the American Top 40 hit singles "Drive", "Man on the Moon", and "Everybody Hurts".^[23] The album would sell about ten million copies worldwide.^[48] As with Out of Time, there was no tour in support of the album. The decision to forgo a tour, in conjunction with Stipe's physical appearance, generated rumors that the singer was dying or HIV-positive, which were vehemently denied by the band.^[58]

[edit] Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi: 1994–1996

	"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" noicon Sample of "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" from Monster (1994). The song's loud, distorted guitars were an intentional departure from the sound of R.E.M.'s previous two albums.
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After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock.^[61] Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK.^[23] The record sold about nine million copies worldwide.^[48] The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts.^[23] Warner Bros. assembled their music videos from Automatic for the People and Monster for release as Parallel in 1995.

In January 1995 R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group.^[62] On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster Tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia.^[63] Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album.^[64] Performances from the tour would be released in home video form as Road Movie.

R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point.^[65] The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK.^[23] The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years.^[66] Time writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole.^[67] That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens.^[68] The group's lawyer, Bertis Downs, assumed managerial duties.^[69]

[edit] Berry's departure and Up: 1997–2000

The departure of drummer Bill Berry in 1997 led to R.E.M. continuing as a three-piece

In April 1997, the band convened at Buck's Kauai vacation home to record demos of material intended for the next album. The band sought to reinvent its sound and intended to incorporate drum loops and percussion experiments.^[70] Just as the sessions were due to begin in October, Berry decided, after months of contemplation and discussions with Downs and Mills, to tell the rest of the band that he was quitting.^[71] Berry told his band mates that he would not quit if they would break up as a result, so Stipe, Mills, and Buck agreed to carry on as a three-piece with his blessing.^[72] Berry publicly announced his departure three weeks later in October 1997. Berry told the press, "I'm just not as enthusiastic as I have been in the past about doing this anymore . . . I have the best job in the world. But I'm kind of ready to sit back and reflect and maybe not be a pop star anymore."^[70] Stipe admitted that the band would be different without a major contributor: "For me, Mike, and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently."^[72]

The band canceled its scheduled recording sessions as a result of Berry's departure. "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills later said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer."^[73] The remaining members of R.E.M. resumed work on the album in February 1998 at Toast Studios in San Francisco.^[74] The band ended its decade-long collaboration with Scott Litt and hired Pat McCarthy to produce the record. Nigel Godrich was taken on as assistant producer, and drafted in ex-Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker. The recording process was plagued with tension, and the group came close to disbanding. Bertis Downs called an emergency meeting where the band members sorted out their problems and agreed to continue as a group.^[75] Led off by the single "Daysleeper", Up (1998) debuted in the top ten in the US and UK. However, the album was a relative failure, selling 900,000 copies in the US by mid-1999 and eventually selling just over two million copies worldwide.^[52] While R.E.M.'s American sales were declining, the group's commercial base was shifting to the UK, where more R.E.M. records were sold per capita than any other country and the band's singles regularly entered the Top 20.^[76]

A year after Up's release, R.E.M. wrote the instrumental score to the Andy Kaufman biographical film Man on the Moon, a first for the group. The film took its title from the Automatic for the People song of the same name.^[77] The song "The Great Beyond" was released as a single from the Man on the Moon soundtrack album. "The Great Beyond" only reached number 57 on the American pop charts, but was the band's highest-charting single ever in the UK, reaching number three in 2000.^[23]

[edit] Reveal and Around the Sun: 2001–2005

R.E.M. on tour in 2008, with long-time collaborator Scott McCaughey

R.E.M. recorded the majority of its twelfth album Reveal (2001) in Canada and Ireland from May to October 2000.^[78] Reveal shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up,^[79] and featured drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band The Minus 5 with Buck) and Posies founder Ken Stringfellow. Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up.^[80] The album was led by the single "Imitation of Life", which reached number six in the UK.^[81] Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn", in comparison to the group's "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up."^[82] Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called Reveal "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty."^[83]

In 2003, Warner Bros. released the compilation album and DVD In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 and In View: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal". At a 2003 concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation", marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.^[84]

R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. During production of the album in 2002, Stipe said, "[The album] sounds like it's taking off from the last couple of records into unchartered R.E.M. territory. Kind of primitive and howling".^[85] After the album's release, Mills said, "I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs."^[86] Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard charts.^[87] The first single from the album, "Leaving New York", was a Top 5 hit in the UK.^[88] For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of several industrial music acts such as Ministry and Pigface.^[89] The video album Perfect Square was released that same year.

[edit] Accelerate, Collapse into Now, and breakup: 2006–2011

Bassist Mike Mills performing in concert in 2008

EMI released a compilation album covering R.E.M.'s work during its tenure on I.R.S. in 2006 called And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 along with the video album When the Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987—the label had previously released the compilations The Best of R.E.M. (1992), R.E.M.: Singles Collected (1994), and R.E.M.: In the Attic – Alternative Recordings 1985–1989 (1997). That same month, all four original band members performed during the ceremony for their induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.^[90] While rehearsing for the ceremony, the band recorded a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a tribute album benefiting Amnesty International.^[91] The song—released as a single for the album and the campaign—featured Bill Berry's first studio recording with the band since his departure almost a decade earlier.^[92] In October 2006, R.E.M. was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility.^[93] The band was one of five nominees accepted into the Hall that year, and the induction ceremony took place in March 2007 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The group—which was inducted by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder—performed four songs with Bill Berry.^[94]

Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a "working rehearsal".^[95] R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007.^[96] The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from its 2007 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts,^[97] and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts.^[98] Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it "one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made."^[99]

In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate.^[100] The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart.^[101] This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and the band began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.^[102]

On September 21, 2011, the band announced via its website that it was "calling it a day as a band". Stipe said that he hoped the band's fans realized it "wasn't an easy decision": "All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way."^[4] Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband.^[103] The group discussed breaking up for several years, but was encouraged to continue after the lackluster critical and commercial performance of Around the Sun; according to Mills, "We needed to prove, not only to our fans and critics but to ourselves, that we could still make great records."^[104] The band members finished their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, which was released in November 2011. The album is the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as three songs from the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions.^[105] In November, Mills and Stipe did a brief span of promotional appearances in British media, ruling out the option of the group ever reuniting.^[106]

Musical style[link]

	"Fall on Me" noicon Sample of "Fall on Me" from Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), which showcases Peter Buck's jangly, arpeggiated guitar style and features Michael Stipe and Mike Mills harmonizing in the chorus.
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In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described typical R.E.M. songs as, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true."^[107] All songwriting is credited to the entire band, even though individual members are sometimes responsible for writing the majority of a particular song.^[108] Each member is given an equal vote in the songwriting process; however, Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, can rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he does not favor.^[58] Among the original line-up, there were divisions of labor in the songwriting process: Stipe would write lyrics and devise melodies, Buck would edge the band in new musical directions, and Mills and Berry would fine-tune the compositions due to their greater musical experience.^[109]

Michael Stipe sings in what R.E.M. biographer David Buckley described as "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures".^[110] Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue.^[111] Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by The Washington Post), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable.^[112] Creem writer John Morthland wrote in his review of Murmur, "I still have no idea what these songs are about, because neither me nor anyone else I know has ever been able to discern R.E.M.'s lyrics."^[113] Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false."^[114] Producer Joe Boyd convinced Stipe to begin singing more clearly during the recording of Fables of the Reconstruction.^[115]

Stipe insisted that many of his early lyrics were "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs.^[116] Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there."^[114] In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level.^[117] Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes . . ."^[118] Songs like "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" on Lifes Rich Pageant dealt with such concerns as pollution.^[119] Stipe incorporated more politically-oriented concerns into his lyrics on Document and Green. "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active."^[120] Stipe has since explored other lyrical topics. Automatic for the People dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff", according to Stipe,^[121] while Monster critiqued love and mass culture.^[120]

Peter Buck's guitar-playing style has defined R.E.M.'s sound

Peter Buck's style of playing guitar has been singled out by many as the most distinctive aspect of R.E.M.'s music. During the 1980s, Buck's "economical, arpeggiated, poetic" style reminded British music journalists of 1960s American folk rock band The Byrds.^[122] Buck has stated "[Byrds guitarist] Roger McGuinn was a big influence on me as a guitar player",^[123] but said it was Byrds-influenced bands, including Big Star and The Soft Boys, that inspired him more.^[124] Comparisons were also made with the guitar playing of Johnny Marr of alternative rock contemporaries The Smiths. While Buck professed being a fan of the group, he admitted he initially criticized the band simply because he was tired of fans asking him if he was influenced by Marr,^[108] whose band had in fact made their debut after R.E.M.^[124] Buck generally eschews guitar solos; he explained in 2002, "I know that when guitarists rip into this hot solo, people go nuts, but I don't write songs that suit that, and I am not interested in that. I can do it if I have to, but I don't like it."^[125] Mike Mills' melodic approach to bass playing is inspired by Paul McCartney of The Beatles and Chris Squire of Yes; Mills has said, "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways . . . I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work."^[126] Mills has more musical training than his band mates, which he has said "made it easier to turn abstract musical ideas into reality."^[123]

Legacy[link]

Pavement is one of several alternative rock bands to cite R.E.M. as an influence; the band even wrote the song "The Unseen Power of the Picket Fence" about R.E.M.

R.E.M. was pivotal in the creation and development of the alternative rock genre. Allmusic stated, "R.E.M. mark the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock."^[9] In the early 1980s, the musical style of R.E.M. stood in contrast to the post-punk and New Wave genres that had preceded it. Music journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the post-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s "had taken whole swaths of music off the menu", particularly that of the 1960s, and that "After postpunk's demystification and New Pop's schematics, it felt liberating to listen to music rooted in mystical awe and blissed-out surrender." Reynolds declared R.E.M., a band that recalled the music of the 1960s with its "plangent guitar chimes and folk-styled vocals" and who "wistfully and abstractly conjured visions and new frontiers for America", one of "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day."^[127] With the release of Murmur, R.E.M. had the most impact musically and commercially of the developing alternative genre's early groups, leaving in its wake a number of jangle pop followers.^[128]

R.E.M.'s early breakthrough success served as an inspiration for other alternative bands. Spin referred to the "R.E.M. model"—career decisions that R.E.M. made which set guidelines for other underground artists to follow in their own careers. Spin's Charles Aaron wrote that by 1985, "They'd shown how far an underground, punk-inspired rock band could go within the industry without whoring out its artistic integrity in any obvious way. They'd figured out how to buy in, not sellout-in other words, they'd achieved the American Bohemian Dream."^[129] Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate said, "They invented a whole new ballgame for all of the other bands to follow whether it was Sonic Youth or the Replacements or Nirvana or Butthole Surfers. R.E.M. staked the claim. Musically, the bands did different things, but R.E.M. was first to show us you can be big and still be cool."^[130] Biographer David Buckley stated that between 1991 and 1994, a period that saw the band sell an estimated 30 million albums, R.E.M. "asserted themselves as rivals to U2 for the title of biggest rock band in the world."^[131] Over the course of its career, the band has sold over 70 million records.^[90]

Later alternative bands such as Nirvana, Pavement, and Live have drawn inspiration from R.E.M.'s music. "When I was 15 years old in Richmond, Virginia, they were a very important part of my life," Pavement's Bob Nastanovich said, "as they were for all the members of our band." Pavement devoted the song "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence" from the No Alternative compilation (1993) to discussing R.E.M's first two albums at length.^[132] Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was a vocal fan of R.E.M., and had plans to collaborate on a musical project with Stipe before his death in April 1994.^[133] Cobain told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier that year, "I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They’ve dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."^[134]

Campaigning and activism[link]

Michael Stipe has used his celebrity status to support political and humanitarian causes; he is seen here at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, which was created to renew that region of New York City after the September 11, 2001 attacks

Throughout R.E.M.'s career, its members sought to highlight social and political issues. According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. was considered to be one of the United States' "most liberal and politically correct rock groups."^[135] The band's members were "on the same page" politically, sharing a liberal and progressive outlook.^[136] Mills admitted that there was occasionally dissension between band members on what causes they might support, but acknowledged "Out of respect for the people who disagree, those discussions tend to stay in-house, just because we'd rather not let people know where the divisions lie, so people can't exploit them for their own purposes." An example is that in 1990 Buck noted that Stipe was involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the rest of the band were not.^[137]

R.E.M. helped raise funds for environmental, feminist and human rights causes, and were involved in campaigns to encourage voter registration. During the Green tour, Stipe took time during sets to inform the audience about a variety of pressing socio-political issues.^[138] Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the band (particularly Stipe) increasingly used its media coverage on national television to mention a variety of causes it felt were important. One example is when the band attended the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, during which Stipe wore a half-dozen white shirts emblazoned with slogans including "rainforest", "love knows no colors", and "handgun control now".^[139] R.E.M. helped raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Burma, when they worked with the Freedom Campaign and the US Campaign for Burma.^[140] Stipe himself ran ads for the 1988 supporting Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush.^[141] In 2004, the band participated in the Vote for Change tour that sought to mobilize American voters to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.^[142] R.E.M.'s political stance, particularly coming from a wealthy rock band under contract to a label owned by a multinational corporation, received criticism from former Q editor Paul Du Noyer, who criticized the band's "celebrity liberalism", saying, "It's an entirely pain-free form of rebellion that they're adopting. There's no risk involved in it whatsoever, but quite a bit of shoring up of customer loyalty."^[143]

From the late 1980s, R.E.M. was involved in the local politics of its hometown of Athens, Georgia.^[144] Buck explained to Sounds in 1987, "Michael always says think local and act local—we have been doing a lot of stuff in our town to try and make it a better place."^[145] The band often donated funds to local charities and to help renovate and preserve historic buildings in the town.^[146] R.E.M.'s political clout was credited with the narrow election of Athens mayor Gwen O'Looney twice in the 1990s.^[147]

Discography[link]

• Murmur (1983)
• Reckoning (1984)
• Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
• Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
• Document (1987)
• Green (1988)
• Out of Time (1991)
• Automatic for the People (1992)
• Monster (1994)
• New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
• Up (1998)
• Reveal (2001)
• Around the Sun (2004)
• Accelerate (2008)
• Collapse into Now (2011)

See also[link]

	Alternative music portal
	Georgia (U.S. state) portal

• Timeline of alternative rock

References[link]

• Black, Johnny. Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat, 2004. ISBN 0-87930-776-5
• Buckley, David. R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin, 2002. ISBN 1-85227-927-3
• Gray, Marcus. It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo, 1997. Second edition. ISBN 0-306-80751-3
• Fletcher, Tony. Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. Omnibus, 2002. ISBN 0-7119-9113-8.
• Platt, John (editor). The R.E.M. Companion: Two Decades of Commentary. Schirmer, 1998. ISBN 0-02-864935-4
• Sullivan, Denise. Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.: An Oral Biography. Underwood-Miller, 1994. ISBN 0-88733-184-X

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Find more about R.E.M. on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote

• Official website
• R.E.M. at the Open Directory Project
• R.E.M. at the Internet Movie Database

The at sign, a part of every SMTP email address^[1]

Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the same time, in common with instant messaging. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need connect only briefly, typically to an email server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.

An email message consists of three components, the message envelope, the message header, and the message body. The message header contains control information, including, minimally, an originator's email address and one or more recipient addresses. Usually descriptive information is also added, such as a subject header field and a message submission date/time stamp.

Originally a text-only (7-bit ASCII and others) communications medium, email was extended to carry multi-media content attachments, a process standardized in RFC 2045 through 2049. Collectively, these RFCs have come to be called Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME).

Electronic mail predates the inception of the Internet, and was in fact a crucial tool in creating it,^[2] but the history of modern, global Internet email services reaches back to the early ARPANET. Standards for encoding email messages were proposed as early as 1973 (RFC 561). Conversion from ARPANET to the Internet in the early 1980s produced the core of the current services. An email sent in the early 1970s looks quite similar to a basic text message sent on the Internet today.

Network-based email was initially exchanged on the ARPANET in extensions to the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), but is now carried by the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), first published as Internet standard 10 (RFC 821) in 1982. In the process of transporting email messages between systems, SMTP communicates delivery parameters using a message envelope separate from the message (header and body) itself.

Spelling[link]

Electronic mail has several English spelling options that occasionally prove cause for surprisingly vehement disagreement.^[3][4]

• email is the form required by IETF Requests for Comment and working groups^[5] and increasingly by style guides.^[6][7][8] This spelling also appears in most dictionaries.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14]}
• e-mail is a form previously recommended by some prominent journalistic and technical style guides. According to Corpus of Contemporary American English data, this is the form that appears most frequently in edited, published American English writing.^[15]
• mail was the form used in the original RFC. The service is referred to as mail and a single piece of electronic mail is called a message.^[16][17][18]
• eMail, capitalizing only the letter M, was common among ARPANET users and the early developers of Unix, CMS, AppleLink, eWorld, AOL, GEnie, and Hotmail.^{[citation needed]}
• EMail is a traditional form that has been used in RFCs for the "Author's Address",^[17][18] and is expressly required "for historical reasons".^[19]
• E-mail is sometimes used, capitalizing the initial letter E as in similar abbreviations like E-piano, E-guitar, A-bomb, H-bomb, and C-section.^[20]

There is also some variety in the plural form of the term. In US English email is used as a mass noun (like the term mail for items sent through the postal system), but in British English it is more commonly used as a count noun with the plural emails.^{[citation needed]}

Origin[link]

Precursors[link]

Sending text messages electronically could be said to date back to the Morse code telegraph of the mid 1800s; and the 1939 New York World's Fair, where IBM sent a letter of congratulations from San Francisco to New York on an IBM radio-type, calling it a high-speed substitute for mail service in the world of tomorrow.^[21] Teleprinters were used in Germany during World War II,^[22] and use spread until the late 1960s when there was a worldwide Telex network. Additionally, there was the similar but incompatible American TWX, which remained important until the late 1980s.^[23]

Host-based mail systems[link]

With the introduction of MIT's Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) in 1961^[24] for the first time multiple users were able to log into a central system^[25] from remote dial-up terminals, and to store, and share, files on the central disk.^[26] Informal methods of using this to pass messages developed—and were expanded to create the first true email system:

• MIT's CTSS MAIL, in 1965.^[27]

Other early time-sharing system soon had their own email applications:

• 1972 - Unix mail program^[28][29]
• 1972 - APL Mailbox by Larry Breed^[30][31]
• 1981 - PROFS by IBM^[32][33]
• 1982 - ALL-IN-1^[34] by Digital Equipment Corporation

Although similar in concept, all these original email systems had widely different features and ran on incompatible systems. They allowed communication only between users logged into the same host or "mainframe" - although this could be hundreds or even thousands of users within an organization.

Email networks[link]

Soon systems were developed to link compatible mail programs between different organisations over dialup modems or leased lines, creating local and global networks.

• In 1971 the first ARPANET email was sent,^[35] and through RFC 561, RFC 680, RFC 724—and finally 1977's RFC 733, became a standardized working system.

Other separate networks were also being created including:

• Unix mail was networked by 1978's uucp,^[36] which was also used for USENET newsgroup postings
• IBM mainframe email was linked by BITNET in 1981^[37]
• IBM PCs running DOS in 1984 could link with FidoNet for email and shared bulletin board posting

LAN email systems[link]

In the early 1980s, networked personal computers on LANs became increasingly important. Server-based systems similar to the earlier mainframe systems were developed. Again these systems initially allowed communication only between users logged into the same server infrastructure. Examples include:

• cc:Mail
• Lantastic
• WordPerfect Office
• Microsoft Mail
• Banyan VINES
• Lotus Notes

Eventually these systems too could also be linked between different organizations, as long as they ran the same email system and proprietary protocol.^[38]

Attempts at interoperability[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010)

Early interoperability among independent systems included:

• ARPANET, the forerunner of today's Internet, defined the first protocols for dissimilar computers to exchange email
• uucp implementations for non-Unix systems were used as an open "glue" between differing mail systems, primarily over dialup telephones
• CSNet used dial-up telephone access to link additional sites to the ARPANET and then Internet

Later efforts at interoperability standardization included:

• Novell briefly championed the open MHS protocol but abandoned it after purchasing the non-MHS WordPerfect Office (renamed Groupwise)
• The Coloured Book protocols on UK academic networks until 1992
• X.400 in the 1980s and early 1990s was promoted by major vendors and mandated for government use under GOSIP but abandoned by all but a few — in favor of Internet SMTP by the mid-1990s.

From SNDMSG to MSG[link]

In the early 1970s, Ray Tomlinson updated an existing utility called SNDMSG so that it could copy messages (as files) over the network. Lawrence Roberts, the project manager for the ARPANET development, took the idea of READMAIL, which dumped all "recent" messages onto the user's terminal, and wrote a program for TENEX in TECO macros called RD which permitted accessing individual messages.^[39] Barry Wessler then updated RD and called it NRD.^[40]

Marty Yonke combined rewrote NRD to include reading, access to SNDMSG for sending, and a help system, and called the utility WRD which was later known as BANANARD. John Vittal then updated this version to include 3 important commands: Move (combined save/delete command), Answer (determined to whom a reply should be sent) and Forward (send an email to a person who was not already a recipient). The system was called MSG. With inclusion of these features, MSG is considered to be the first integrated modern email program, from which many other applications have descended.^[39]

Rise of ARPANET mail[link]

The ARPANET computer network made a large contribution to the development of email. There is one report that indicates experimental inter-system email transfers began shortly after its creation in 1969.^[27] Ray Tomlinson is generally credited as having sent the first email across a network, initiating the use of the "@" sign to separate the names of the user and the user's machine in 1971, when he sent a message from one Digital Equipment Corporation DEC-10 computer to another DEC-10. The two machines were placed next to each other.^[41][42] Tomlinson's work was quickly adopted across the ARPANET, which significantly increased the popularity of email. For many years, email was the killer app of the ARPANET and then the Internet.

Most other networks had their own email protocols and address formats; as the influence of the ARPANET and later the Internet grew, central sites often hosted email gateways that passed mail between the Internet and these other networks. Internet email addressing is still complicated by the need to handle mail destined for these older networks. Some well-known examples of these were UUCP (mostly Unix computers), BITNET (mostly IBM and VAX mainframes at universities), FidoNet (personal computers), DECNET (various networks) and CSNET a forerunner of NSFNet.

An example of an Internet email address that routed mail to a user at a UUCP host:

hubhost!middlehost!edgehost!user@uucpgateway.somedomain.example.com

This was necessary because in early years UUCP computers did not maintain (and could not consult central servers for) information about the location of all hosts they exchanged mail with, but rather only knew how to communicate with a few network neighbors; email messages (and other data such as Usenet News) were passed along in a chain among hosts who had explicitly agreed to share data with each other. (Eventually the UUCP Mapping Project would provide a form of network routing database for email.)

Operation overview[link]

The diagram to the right shows a typical sequence of events^[43] that takes place when Alice composes a message using her mail user agent (MUA). She enters the email address of her correspondent, and hits the "send" button.

1. Her MUA formats the message in email format and uses the Submission Protocol (a profile of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), see RFC 6409) to send the message to the local mail submission agent (MSA), in this case smtp.a.org, run by Alice's internet service provider (ISP).
2. The MSA looks at the destination address provided in the SMTP protocol (not from the message header), in this case bob@b.org. An Internet email address is a string of the form localpart@exampledomain. The part before the @ sign is the local part of the address, often the username of the recipient, and the part after the @ sign is a domain name or a fully qualified domain name. The MSA resolves a domain name to determine the fully qualified domain name of the mail exchange server in the Domain Name System (DNS).
3. The DNS server for the b.org domain, ns.b.org, responds with any MX records listing the mail exchange servers for that domain, in this case mx.b.org, a message transfer agent (MTA) server run by Bob's ISP.
4. smtp.a.org sends the message to mx.b.org using SMTP.

This server may need to forward the message to other MTAs before the message reaches the final message delivery agent (MDA).

1. The MDA delivers it to the mailbox of the user bob.
2. Bob presses the "get mail" button in his MUA, which picks up the message using either the Post Office Protocol (POP3) or the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP4).

That sequence of events applies to the majority of email users. However, there are many alternative possibilities and complications to the email system:

• Alice or Bob may use a client connected to a corporate email system, such as IBM Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange. These systems often have their own internal email format and their clients typically communicate with the email server using a vendor-specific, proprietary protocol. The server sends or receives email via the Internet through the product's Internet mail gateway which also does any necessary reformatting. If Alice and Bob work for the same company, the entire transaction may happen completely within a single corporate email system.
• Alice may not have a MUA on her computer but instead may connect to a webmail service.
• Alice's computer may run its own MTA, so avoiding the transfer at step 1.
• Bob may pick up his email in many ways, for example logging into mx.b.org and reading it directly, or by using a webmail service.
• Domains usually have several mail exchange servers so that they can continue to accept mail when the main mail exchange server is not available.
• Email messages are not secure if email encryption is not used correctly.

Many MTAs used to accept messages for any recipient on the Internet and do their best to deliver them. Such MTAs are called open mail relays. This was very important in the early days of the Internet when network connections were unreliable. If an MTA couldn't reach the destination, it could at least deliver it to a relay closer to the destination. The relay stood a better chance of delivering the message at a later time. However, this mechanism proved to be exploitable by people sending unsolicited bulk email and as a consequence very few modern MTAs are open mail relays, and many MTAs don't accept messages from open mail relays because such messages are very likely to be spam.

[edit] Message format

The Internet email message format is now defined by RFC 5322, with multi-media content attachments being defined in RFC 2045 through RFC 2049, collectively called Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions or MIME. RFC 5322 replaced the earlier RFC 2822 in 2008, and in turn RFC 2822 in 2001 replaced RFC 822 - which had been the standard for Internet email for nearly 20 years. Published in 1982, RFC 822 was based on the earlier RFC 733 for the ARPANET.^[44]

Internet email messages consist of two major sections:

• Header — Structured into fields such as From, To, CC, Subject, Date, and other information about the email.
• Body — The basic content, as unstructured text; sometimes containing a signature block at the end. This is exactly the same as the body of a regular letter.

The header is separated from the body by a blank line.

Message header[link]

Each message has exactly one header, which is structured into fields. Each field has a name and a value. RFC 5322 specifies the precise syntax.

Informally, each line of text in the header that begins with a printable character begins a separate field. The field name starts in the first character of the line and ends before the separator character ":". The separator is then followed by the field value (the "body" of the field). The value is continued onto subsequent lines if those lines have a space or tab as their first character. Field names and values are restricted to 7-bit ASCII characters. Non-ASCII values may be represented using MIME encoded words.

Header fields[link]

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Email header fields can be multi-line, and each line must be at most 76 characters long. Header fields can only contain US-ASCII characters; for encoding characters in other sets, a syntax specified in RFC 2047 can be used.^[45] Recently the IETF EAI working group has defined some experimental extensions to allow Unicode characters to be used within the header. In particular, this allows email addresses to use non-ASCII characters. Such characters must only be used by servers that support these extensions.^{[citation needed]}

The message header must include at least the following fields:^[46]

• From: The email address, and optionally the name of the author(s). In many email clients not changeable except through changing account settings.
• Date: The local time and date when the message was written. Like the From: field, many email clients fill this in automatically when sending. The recipient's client may then display the time in the format and time zone local to him/her.

The message header should include at least the following fields:^[47]

• Message-ID: Also an automatically generated field; used to prevent multiple delivery and for reference in In-Reply-To: (see below).
• In-Reply-To: Message-ID of the message that this is a reply to. Used to link related messages together. This field only applies for reply messages.

RFC 3864 describes registration procedures for message header fields at the IANA; it provides for permanent and provisional message header field names, including also fields defined for MIME, netnews, and http, and referencing relevant RFCs. Common header fields for email include:

• To: The email address(es), and optionally name(s) of the message's recipient(s). Indicates primary recipients (multiple allowed), for secondary recipients see Cc: and Bcc: below.
• Subject: A brief summary of the topic of the message. Certain abbreviations are commonly used in the subject, including "RE:" and "FW:".
• Bcc: Blind Carbon Copy; addresses added to the SMTP delivery list but not (usually) listed in the message data, remaining invisible to other recipients.
• Cc: Carbon copy; Many email clients will mark email in your inbox differently depending on whether you are in the To: or Cc: list.
• Content-Type: Information about how the message is to be displayed, usually a MIME type.
• Precedence: commonly with values "bulk", "junk", or "list"; used to indicate that automated "vacation" or "out of office" responses should not be returned for this mail, e.g. to prevent vacation notices from being sent to all other subscribers of a mailinglist. Sendmail uses this header to affect prioritization of queued email, with "Precedence: special-delivery" messages delivered sooner. With modern high-bandwidth networks delivery priority is less of an issue than it once was. Microsoft Exchange respects a fine-grained automatic response suppression mechanism, the X-Auto-Response-Suppress header.^[48]
• References: Message-ID of the message that this is a reply to, and the message-id of the message the previous reply was a reply to, etc.
• Reply-To: Address that should be used to reply to the message.
• Sender: Address of the actual sender acting on behalf of the author listed in the From: field (secretary, list manager, etc.).
• Archived-At: A direct link to the archived form of an individual email message.^[49]

Note that the To: field is not necessarily related to the addresses to which the message is delivered. The actual delivery list is supplied separately to the transport protocol, SMTP, which may or may not originally have been extracted from the header content. The "To:" field is similar to the addressing at the top of a conventional letter which is delivered according to the address on the outer envelope. In the same way, the "From:" field does not have to be the real sender of the email message. Some mail servers apply email authentication systems to messages being relayed. Data pertaining to server's activity is also part of the header, as defined below.

SMTP defines the trace information of a message, which is also saved in the header using the following two fields:^[50]

• Received: when an SMTP server accepts a message it inserts this trace record at the top of the header (last to first).
• Return-Path: when the delivery SMTP server makes the final delivery of a message, it inserts this field at the top of the header.