Michael Stipe on the making of What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? and the crazy tale behind its title

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R.E.M. were one of the biggest bands in the world as they arrived at their ninth studio album Monster. Two early 90s records, 1991’s Out Of Time and quickfire follow-up Automatic For The People (released just a year later) had sent the Athens, Georgia stratospheric. But Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry were always very much a band programmed to wriggle out of anything resembling a comfort zone and they mixed things up on Monster, moving away from the rustic, acoustic-heavy stylings of its predecessors and into something rockier and more electrified. The record was heralded with the fuzzy riffs and hollered vocals of lead single What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?, which turns 30 at the beginning of September.

As well as being one of the band’s most memorable hits, it also has an intriguing backstory, its title coming from a line that was repeatedly shouted at US TV reporter Dan Rather when he was attacked in New York in 1986. Looking back at the song with Rather himself in an interview a few years ago, frontman and lyricist Stipe said the song was a generational gap.

“I was writing a song about a character who is desperately trying to understand a younger generation’s perspective and failing miserably at it,” Stipe explained. “The phrase, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?” or “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” – I think I turned it – represents inscrutability. It’s the big question. No-one knew what it meant. It represented trying and trying and trying but not arriving at the answer, so it's inscrutable.”

Stipe also said that the lyrics contained a quote from Slackers and Dazed And Confused director Richard Linklater. “The quote from Richard Linklater, ‘Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy’,” said Stipe, “that described in the early 90s the generation that was coming up and there was a world-weary, dystopic, fuck-it-all feeling coming out of grunge and coming out of that generation. The song was about someone who was really trying to tap into that and not doing a good job of it.”

Acknowledging Rather’s indirect contribution to the song, Stipe says, “You were such a great sport about the whole thing. I remember you coming to soundcheck and us performing the song together.”

Rather concedes that he is no natural singer, which is true as you can see and hear for yourself in the video below:

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Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, Champions Journal, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleague Ted Kessler. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Radiohead, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more.