were one of the biggest bands in the world as they arrived at their ninth studio album . Two early 90s records, 1991’s and quickfire follow-up (released just a year later) had sent the Athens, Georgia stratospheric. But Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry were always very much a band programmed to wriggle out of anything resembling a comfort zone and they mixed things up on , moving away from the rustic, acoustic-heavy stylings of its predecessors and into something rockier and more electrified.
The record was heralded with the fuzzy riffs and hollered vocals of lead single , which turns 30 at the beginning of September. As well as being one of the band’s most memorable hits, it also has an intriguing backstory, its title coming from a line that was repeatedly shouted at US TV reporter Dan Rather when he was attacked in New York in 1986. Looking back at the song with Rather himself in an interview a few years ago, frontman and lyricist Stipe said the song was a generational gap.
“I was writing a song about a character who is desperately trying to understand a younger generation’s perspective and failing miserably at it,” Stipe explained. “The phrase, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?” or “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” – I think I turned it – represents inscrutability. It’s the big question.
No-one knew what it meant. It represented trying and trying and trying but not arriving at the answer, so it's inscrutable.” Stipe also sai.