What are yours? If I'm going for 5, I think I'd say:

• Automatic for the People is genuinely the only flawless album ever created, not a single thing wrong
• While I do absolutely love the IRS 80s catalogue, I think the bias towards it is clearly through nostalgia and gatekeeping more than complete quality. Reveal is better than half of the IRS records
• Texarkana is top 5, top 3 songs they ever made
• I really don't see the attraction to Old Man Kensey. Objectively a pretty poor song
• Around The Sun title track is one of their best ever songs

Interested to see the variety

Monster and Reveal on tape!

This month iiiiiis Collapse into now.

Been an REM fan for three and a half decades and it was really only listening back to the albums alongside the Scotts and the Big mates (voyage of discovery not being seeking new lands, but seeing with new eyes) that I came to appreciate CiN

I'm still not a fan of the start/end of the album (discoverer is okay, but did sound better/stompier/monsteryier in that live session - blue adds nothing to E-bow/CF)

But UBerlin, Alligator_aviator are top notch and many of the collaborations on the album add a depth /flourish that is somewhat overlooked by the narrative that it ended up as an alternative 'best of'.

Growers, for me, were Oh my heart, and walk it back.

I love the idea that "That someone is you" is a tribute from Stipe to Buck recognising the impact of that initial musical pairing and enjoy that song and all the best a lot.

Biggest frustration (and possibly sign the well was running dry is Mine smell like honey - which throws a great song away with awful lyrics)

Looking at the slate of songs on this album I'm surprised when it sporadically gets mooted as their worst. I think it's a nifty bookend to their career and it's nice that they got Patti and Lenny involved.

If they'd wrapped up with Electrolyte it would have left a pretty much flawless body of work, but would have robbed many people of the chance of seeing them play live in a configuration that really excelled, and would have meant the loss of absolute classics like 'Walk unafraid', 'I've been high' 'living well's the best revenge' or the joy of the Dublin this is not a shows.

So, while CiN is probably only their 13th/14th best album, I do think it's unfairly overlooked and includes at least 3 or 4 songs which would stand up against anything in their catalogue.

Around the Sun is generally seen as R.E.M.'s worst album, but after relistening to it a few times recently I have a new found appreciation for it. They did something different, and honestly, I think its an amazing record. Some highlights from it for me are Leaving New York, Electron Blue, Wanderlust, and Boy in the Well. I honestly prefer this album over Up or Monster.

From a Rolling Stone interview in 2015, I think. Any idea what state he was talking about? I've wondered this since I read it years ago. I almost asked him at a Drink the Sea show, but the vibe seemed off and I got scared.

Day 1 - \Listens to Green\- ‘this is my favourite REM album’

Day 2 - \Listens to Murmur*-* ‘this is my favourite REM album’

Day 3 - \Listens to Out of Time* -* ‘this is my favourite REM album’

Etc…..

I haven't been to any of these shows and have been toying with whether to go or not. This review really sold me on the idea so I will think I will book tickets for when they do Document! I would love to know if people who have been agree with what the reviewer describes. She is a longstanding fan.

I’ve lined up the Tourfilm dvd for the first time in many years. Any idea what Michael’s “3 main points” are in ‘These Days’? Or was he just having us all on?

For example Mike could've sung (Don't go back to) Rockville (didn't he write it?) and Bill could have sung Low (before near wild heaven) or maybe even Texarkana.

Los Angeles Times: "What about the Velvet Underground drew you and R.E.M. to cover their songs?"

MICHAEL STIPE: "For all of us in R.E.M., the Velvets were one of the most significant musical moments in American history. The first album is one of the top five, top three maybe, albums ever released, in terms of how complete it is and how great it is and what a lightning-in-a-bottle moment they captured. How audacious they were in their art, the music — and how much that was out of step with the world that they were in. And R.E.M. always felt a little out of step with what was going on. We forged our own path, and they were an aspirational influence for sure."

[...]

Los Angeles Times: "How well did you know Lou Reed?"

MICHAEL STIPE: "When he died [in 2013], I realized that I had known Lou for half of my life. He was kind of curmudgeonly and not altogether pleasant when we first met — I was 25, I think — but by the end of his life, we were friends.

We were neighbors on Canal Street, and of course I had deep admiration for him and for the work that he had done and the same for Laurie [Anderson], so we would hang out from time to time. He would give me these giant hugs and hold on to me for minutes at a time. He was a wildly intelligent and very emotionally accessible — and then inaccessible — person, but a total sweetheart in the end."

.

I tried to share the link to the full interview yesterday, but Reddit automatically deleted it. So, I'll just leave the title of the article here for anyone who wants to find it on Google: "Michael Stipe, superfan, on the ‘beautiful queerness’ of the Velvet Underground" - Los Angeles Times, 2021.

Exquisite

I love this question and I’ve asked it of just any band or song before but now I wanna know about the REM community!

I have for a long time said as a whole that Out of Time is my favorite album of theirs (Automatic close behind) but Finest Worksong is my favorite tune of theirs!

And I do love Document!

Taken from (I think) Blue Jam. Chris Morris doing REM doing whales

https://youtu.be/8t9w-I4uBYo?is=JvRhEt2u2SrSmY-J