R.E.M., Patti Smith to join other rockers in Hall

“Radio Free Europe,” R.E.M.’s 1981 debut single, heralded the birth of alternative rock and one of its most reputable champions.

It also started the 25-year countdown to an inevitable induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The band, which formed 27 years ago in Athens, Ga., heads the 2007 class that will be formally inducted Monday night.

Also on the list are Van Halen, Patti Smith, The Ronettes, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five – the first rap act to make the hall.

“This announces the beginning of the rap era for the Hall,” says Bill Adler, a hip-hop historian and member of the Hall’s nominating committee. “Flash and the Furious Five are going to open the floodgates.”

For R.E.M., the night will be especially poignant for two reasons. First, original drummer Bill Berry – who had a brain aneurysm in 1995 and quit in 1997 to become a farmer – will rejoin band mates Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills on stage.

Second, they’ll be inducted alongside a longtime idol.

“This band wouldn’t exist without Patti Smith,” Stipe says. “To be here the same year is an incredible thrill. She’s an immense talent and a rare voice.”

The jangle guitar-pop and enigmatic lyrics of R.E.M., a rare breed in the postpunk era, expanded from a college-radio sensation in the early ‘80s to a chart staple a decade later.

“We grew up in the public very slowly, and we stubbornly refused to do things that might have escalated our rise,” Stipe says.

Today, he says, that strategy would result in “an immense struggle.”

“The industry that was music is no longer,” Stipe says. “People are struggling to wrap their heads around the seismic shift that occurred when technology took this great leap.

“Peter Buck always mentions the horse buggy whip factory and the feeling around the lunch table the day the automobile was introduced. That’s the music industry, which is ripe for an immense recession. People either have their heads in the sand or they’re trying to hold on to what still works and apply it to a completely new landscape.”

The industry slump has not stifled creativity, says Stipe, waxing rhapsodic over the “incredible energy and unbelievable talent” he witnessed at a recent concert by Arcade Fire and Athens band Producto.

While its own sales have steadily eroded, R.E.M. is crafting a new album, and canonization in a rock museum isn’t accelerating retirement plans.

“I’ve never put much thought into how much longer we might go,” Stipe says. “I just hope we know before anyone else when it’s time to stop.”