This is spot-on regarding how R.E.M. has been perceived the past 15 years or so. "...It's strange how unfairly the love affair between audience and artist can turn sour. In the uphill years, the same things that were once adored—their eccentric individualism, their stubborn lack of glamour, an aura of principle and honor, the eternal Michael Stipe-ness of Michael Stipe—suddenly seemed to count against them. What had once appeared natural and unexpected and effortless was routinely scorned as labored and mannered and calculated. As with any abandoned lover, whatever they did was wrong—failing