It's the end of R.E.M. as we know it: Michael Stipe and crew breakup after 31 years

R.E.M. announced that they are breaking up on their web site today. The trio of Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck and bass player Mike Mills released this joint statement:

"To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening."

Stipe, Mills, Buck and drummer Bill Berry - who left the band to become a hay farmer in 1997 after suffering a brain aneurysm in 1995 - formed R.E.M. in 1980 in Athens, Georgia. With Stipe's mumbled vocals and Buck's chiming, Byrdsy guitar at the the forefront, they were an ever more popular cult band before breaking through with their fifth album, Document, in 1987, which included the hits, "The One I Love" and "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

After going on to further mainstream success with albums like Automatic For The People in 1992 - which included the ubiquitous dirge "Everybody Hurts" and Andy Kaufman-inspired gooof "Man In The Moon" - the band's star slowly began to recede. And in the long breaks between R.E.M. albums, Buck in particular increasingly busied himself playing with acts like Robyn Hitchcock and the Minus Five.

The band made a return to relevance with 2008's aptly titled Accelerate, and a tour for that revved-up effort that was one of the highlights of the season at the Mann Music Center in Fairmount Park that summer. This year's Collapse Into Now, however, failed to maintain Accelerate's artistic or commercial momentum, and the band did not tour behind it.

Stipe said: "A wise man once said, 'The skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave. We built something extraordinary together. We did this thing. And now we're going to walk away from it."

Buck added: "One of the things that was always so great about being in R.E.M. was the fact that the records and the songs we wrote meant as much to our fans as they did to us. It was, and still is, important to us to do right by you. Being a part of your lives has been an unbelievable gift. Thank you."

"It's The End Of The World As WE Know It (And I Feel Fine)," is below.

Previously: John Wesley Harding's "There's A Starbucks (Where The Starbucks Used To Be)" Follow In The Mix on Twitter here