The '90s indie sensation R.E.M., who you haven't thought about since Automatic for the People, has officially broken up. Oh thank God. They had gotten to be like a novelist who lived too long and wrote all these crappy books that sullied the reputation of their sterling early works.

Here's the official obit from their website:

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.

That means the remaining members of the band will go on to their solo projects that we'll mostly ignore and working with other aging members of other broken up bands from their era and people will still go to see them live to remember the good old days of Fables of the Reconstruction and IRS Records but it just won't be the same. No, the memory is just never the same. So, bye, R.E.M. I won't really miss you.

[Image via Getty]