It is not unusual for an artist to ask a political candidate, usually of the opposite persuasion from their personal beliefs, to stop playing their recordings during a campaign. R.E.M. has gone a step further and demanded that the Fox News Network stop playing Losing My Religion on their network.
REM at SXSW. Photo by Ros O'Gorman
After the Democratic platform was originally published without the mention of God in the text, Fox started using Losing My Religion as part of their broadcasts of the party’s convention. R.E.M., in turn, released the following statement:
R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” was used in the Fox News coverage of the Democratic National Convention last night. R.E.M. today, through its music publisher, Warner-Tamerlane Music, demanded that Fox News cease and desist from continuing its unlicensed and unauthorized use of the song. Michael Stipe said, “We have little or no respect for their puff adder brand of reportage. Our music does not belong there.”
Band manager Bertis Downs told Athens, GA’s newspaper The Flagpole that the network has yet to respond.
