R.E.M’s Five Most Essential Albums
- R.E.M. may have broken up, but there’s still the music.
Together for thirty years, R.E.M.’s greatest albums showcase the Athens, Georgia, legends’ incredible artistic progression for what it was — a true Rock rarity. They also serve as a welcome introduction to the rest of the band’s deep discography. Though there’s plenty of great writing about what the band’s music means to contemporary listeners in relation to their breakup earlier this week, I prefer to focus on the music itself to see what made R.E.M. stand apart from the crowd.
These five albums have proven to be the ones I’ve gone back to most often, the albums which provide the best look at what the band had to offer musically, where they’ve been and where we’re left now that there will be no sixteenth album. These may not be the albums you’d expect from a critic, since we’re supposed to prefer only the “indie” releases, shying away from respecting the hits which saw “mainstream” success, leading to the band’s inevitable demise. As a listener I don’t feel there’s a need for “guilty” pleasures, and in the case of R.E.M. the singles are as much a part of why they’ll be remembered as are the indie albums that built their success to the point where multi-platinum success was a reality.
Few bands in the modern rock or alternative landscape have managed to craft such a diverse discography, so many albums which managed to build upon each other, creating mainstream success through recording, touring and then living the music and letting it live through them. Though R.E.M. will be remembered for their singles, a look back through the band’s strongest albums shows that their music was always built on a strong recognition of pop hooks and songwriting. The band has left us with fifteen albums which cement their legacy, leaving plenty of room for future exploration. Their influence on the world of rock and alternative is far from over.
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#5 — Accelerate (2008)
R.E.M. was forced to transition to being a trio when drummer Bill Barry left the band in the late 90s, and though they attempted to carry on with experimentations with drum-machines on Up, R.E.M.’s early 2000s albums (Reveal and Around The Sun) showed they were floundering creatively. The latter album actually failed to even go Gold in the United States, the first album since Document put them into the stratosphere, to fail to do so.
Thankfully, Accelerate, their 14th studio album was a complete turnaround — the band seemed reinvigorated, accelerating their sound by returning to the garage rock of their late 80s / early 90s work. It was immediately clear from the up-tempo opening track “Living Well Is The Best Revenge,” as Michael Stipe piled on the garage-rock hooks to push their sound back to the underground days of their first four albums, while emphasizing their studio abilities in the strong production values. “I’m not one to sit and spin,” he growls, “because living well is the best revenge!” Indeed. Accelerate was a tight 11-track album which proved you can go back again.
(Must Hear: “Living Well Is The Best Revenge”, “Houston”, “Supernatural Superserious”)
30 years, 14 albums, endless hours of boring music. Why did they have to stay together so long?
I remember, circa 1992, being a big fan of REM, considering them the apotheosis of modern music that was alternative/cool/profound/thoughtful. And at the time I was hanging out with a girl I really really liked, and one day we were listening to an REM album, maybe Automatic for the People. And out of the blue she said, “You know, REM is boring.” I started to protest, but realized right away she was right. That was me in the corner. And ever since I’ve seen REM as boring and Michael Stipe as vaguely vain and pretentious.
r.e.m. definitely had their own sound and all of their records are solid
personally, i listened to “fables”(was in my car,) “life’s rich pageant,” and “green” more than most of the others although murmur is one of my favorites
peter buck doesnt get enough props
Life’s Rich Pageant is my favorite
I definitely agree re: Buck not getting enough props. I’d say he’s among rock’s most underrated guitarists, because he tended to play a role rather than being the showy “guitar God” so many others of his generation preferred to be.
Maybe I’m older and they didn’t become big until I was well into working adulthood, but for me, just downloading their greatest hits was good enough.
I’ve got no problem with people who just prefer the greatest hits. But I saw this as a way to explore the band’s music more fully if you so choose. Even with just the hits, I think the band proved they knew how to write strong alt-pop melodies.
Johnathan not much argument here, except two. First, Accelerate? Really? Kick it out and add Monster. Monster was the last good REM album. Sorry, but Accelerate stunk. Lastly, you could either expand the list to six, or kick out Murmur and add Out of Time. I do agree, Automatic For The People is hands down the best.
Dump Accelerate, add Green, then you have a good list.
I recall having seen REM at the 9:30 Club in D.C, must have been around 1984.
That same week I caught the Ramones at the Wax Museum.
I wonder if either of those venues still exist?
Good times, good times.
Wish I had thought to wear earplugs for the Ramones though. My ears are still ringing.
The best of REM were mid 80s live concert bootlegs.
REM: Overrated. Their Athens, Georgia compatriots The B-52′s were much better.
I completely agree, overrated and ponderous; pretentious, even. I found they lacked a certain quality other notable (and less than notable) 80s bands had: a constant sense of quirky fun. Instead, damned near every song they did was a dirge about some or another political issue, and an attempt to be “uber-hip.”
Really….
The 52′s were fabulous….wild, subversive, tongue in cheek, over the top.
Dare we say, fun?
They were an ACT, they were ARTISTS.
R.E.M. took themselves too seriously.
So did their fans.
Keg-party Einstiens with a “cause”
It’s not possible to like both? The B-52s never seemed to have the same problem with R.E.M. that you do.
Besides, the B-52s ran out of creative steam very quickly (after only two albums). After that, they only had one decent album – Cosmic Thing. They were a fun band, no doubt – but they had nowhere near the musical sophistication of R.E.M. (to say nothing of the lyrics). The B-52s were a party band. R.E.M were artists.
Jonathan, I like your list, although I agree with others that I would have found a spot for Green. Automatic has some of R.E.M.’s absolutely best music – much of it is so beautiful it’s breathtaking. It’s worth the price of admission for “Everybody Hurts” and “Man on the Moon” alone – but as a whole, I feel Green is the more consistent album.
Taxpayer, though I’m not a huge jam band fan, Athens, ‘Widespread Panic’ is leaps and bounds better than REM had ever been.
It’s been the consensus there for years.
REM possessed far too simple beats accompanied with boring, whiny lyrics and absolutely no range vocals by Stipe.
I was in college when REM became popular. My uber-lib classmates were spellbound. I was bored.
I feel you. College ’94-’98.
If it weren’t for early 90′s heavyweights of AiC/Mad Season, Tool, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, RATM, Stone Roses, Screaming Trees, NIN, PJ Harvey, RHCP, Bad Religion, Dinosaur Jr, Steve Vai etc,.
We’d have been subjected only to the likes of squishy & whiny REM, Black Crowes, Bush, Soul Asylum, Stabbing Westward, Collective Soul, Tonic, Hootie, Third Eye Blind, Spacehog etc., YIKES!
I’ll take ‘Big Wooly Mammoth’ over any REM tripe.
Who needs R.E.M.? Peter Buck is playing in Robyn Hitchcock’s band! Waaaaay better!
He also played on Tired Pony’s album “The Place We Ran From,” which is certainly worth a listen.
Good band, but not great. Over-hyped by the hipster media. I thought they already split.
REM sucked. rare, passable melodies, juvenile lyrics, left wing blather otherwise. Good riddance.
Music is music, politics is politics … they may have had some left-wing ideals, but to lump their entire career into the category of “left-wing blather” seems a bit much.
So in other words, you never listened to them either…
Just tolerated their noise enough to get laid.
Lefty college chics..indulge their politics, gain their panties
Stipe and company was just another one of the same.
The first video above is from ‘Austin City Limits’ programming. The two large buildings in the back ground are the tower at the University of Texas, the dome is the state capital building.
Life’s Rich Pageant. That album was a stepping stone to Document. For me, REM went downhill when Bill Berry decided to leave for health reasons.
They definitely stumbled when Barry left, as they had such a hard time replacing him, more than I think they thought they would.
A great American rock band. The start of the musical flood from Athens. This flood changed in some ways the way Americans, and the world view pop/rock music. From the ravings of Jeff Mangrum and “Neutral Milk Hotel”, to the near perfect psychedelia of “Olivia Tremor Control”, music is a far better place for having R.E.M around. Frankly, if R.E.M. bored you, then i postulate your a damm boring person to begin with.
I bet you like Ruben Navarette, too.
REM? YMMV, I guess. I understood the musical talent, just didn’t get the sensibility. Too much whine, not enough rock. I still envision Michael Stipe on stage, hugging himself, trying to curl up in a ball, wishing the world away as he keened some self-pitying, obscure little lyric. I used to wonder how a guy who’s only five months older than I am turned into…that. Was it the gayness? Was it growing up in the avant garde atmosphere of a college town? Or maybe he was just he 80s answer to James Taylor. Yeah, Everybody Hurts. Real rockers don’t whine about it.
Yeah, everybody hurts…
Bloody blisters from a 40 mile forced march hurt
Tattoos hurt…..
So does rope burn from rappelling
Busting your knuckles adjusting the valves of a vintage Ducati, Laverda, Guzzi or BiMota hurts.
Road rash hurts
Dirty, cheating women hurt.
Ditto for that long drawn out fist fight with your (once) best friend.
Rock and Roll used to scream out the pain and pride of that kinda stuff.
THEN came Ms.Stipe, the male version of “Maude” to ruin it all forever.
Pussy.
I understand why people like their music – I could never get into it myself. There’s not a single song they have I’d take even for free.
I don’t know what it is – the music doesn’t move me in any way. Lot’s of music does – not this.
I have no complaints about their politics, lyrics, nothing. It just kind of lays there and does very little beyond having a kind of shallow cleverness, like a not so cool tattoo.
good call…
Like most things left, they are over-rated by the few, who wonder why no one in the “real world” worships them.
That artificial “mainstream”, like all Left Ideas.
Not a very good band.
Ok I can understand why most of the comments on this here conservative/libertarian website would dislike REM for their music from the 90′s to now. I also got tired of the political dirges and I considered myself a devoted fan at one time.
But I still love their earliest music and I think that whoever thinks that they had no sense of humor or joy in their music can’t be thinking of their output from the 80′s To me there was no band with a lighter touch. I always got an image of light playing on water or one of those water skater bugs on a pond. They were quick, light and full of energy and drive on their earlier albums. To me the 80′s version of this band is still the one I think of first when I think of the joy that can be had from music. Also, if you have ever heard their drunken version of King of the Road, you could never accuse them of being humorless.
I have a quibble with the list. Its not that any the albums on it are bad choices (although I have never heard Accelerate personally. I am just giving that one the benefit of the doubt.) I think its too short. I would make room on it for Life’s Rich Pageant. Its my favorite of all of REM’s albums and I think none other surpasses it for energy, tunefulness and fun. For it epitomizes the band and shows off all their best qualities in one place.
Doing a top five was already a 2,000-word endeavor. But Out of Time and Life’s Rich Pageant would have been in the next tier. I think these five albums provide the best entry points to the band’s sound, though I’m suspecting many of the commentators here would prefer no entry point to any of these albums.
Like I said, I’m not a fan but I do agree that their earlier stuff was lighter and, for me, more enjoyable. So what happened? Stipe start taking himself too seriously?
I’m sure that was part of it … it’s difficult to find a mainstream audience and maintain exactly what made you feel unique as an underground artist. But even taking himself too seriously, they still built quite the body of work.
R.E.M. can stand proudly as one of the great rock bands in modern music, alongside U2, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Yes, The Beach Boys, and Fleetwood Mac (of course they all stand behind the Beatles and the Stones). “Lifes Rich Pageant” is – in my book – a perfect album. Favorite songs by R.E.M.: ‘Disturbance at the Heron House’, ‘Me in Honey’, ‘Cuyahoga’, and the song that started it all, the incomprehensible ‘Radio Free Europe’. That said, I think the author is correct in picking “Automatic for the People” as one of their best records (‘Ignoreland’ and ‘Man on the Moon’ are the standouts from that record). Personally, the success of R.E.M. came as a pleasant surprise. Back when I was a DJ at my college radio station, songs from Chronic Town made frequent appearances on my show, but R.E.M.’s music was nearly the opposite of the “New Wave” from England (all those synth bands were the next big thing in those days!). 30 years later, and who remembers bands like The Human League and Depeche Mode?
I’ve been enjoying flashing back to some crazy Golden Earring eighties stuff, like their brilliantly ironic videos for “When The Lady Smiles” and “Twilight Zone” … but I definitely prefer R.E.M.’s eighties output to that ilk.
“who remembers bands like The Human League and Depeche Mode?”
Same losers that thought The Cure was cool
Or listened to R.E.M. without projectile vomiting…
Ewww.
I’m not a huge techno fan, but ‘Human League’ helped usher in Joy Division and Depeche Mode.
JD’s, ‘Unknown Pleasures’ and ‘Closer’ albums are incredible. Nothing in REM’s catalog can touch either album.
As for DM, their early 80′s-early 90′s catalog again dwarfs REM. DM’s songwriter Martin Gore is an extremely clever writer.
Well, I guess I’ll be the one to skunk-up this garden party. Aside from the incomparable “The One I Love” from Document, I think R.E.M.’s best music is the handful of hits from Monster. Strong hooks, big and psychy sound, and not much pussification or politics which I think answers many of the critics here and explains it’s relative unpopularity among music critics and the band’s liberal fan base. Then again, I pray in the church of Page, Townsend, Richards and Hendrix and Techno.
I always liked “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth” and “Bang and Blame” off that album. Read a review at PopMatters that said Monster was one of their most maligned (wrongly) albums … http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/66852-it-starts-with-an-earthquake-rems-monster/ … it might be up your alley, Tim!
J.S.,
Many thanks for the link to the excellent review (and comments thereon). Opinions will always vary, but by so readily enabling one to validate his own views, the Internet approaches Divinity!
The EP that started to get the ball rolling was called “Chronic Town”, not “Crazy Town”. Plus, how can you discuss the EP and have their first two albums, “Murmur” and “Reckoning” on this top five without mentioning Mitch Easter, the producer that helped develop the sound that created all the buzz in the first place?
Their first few albums were great, but their stuff after “Green” devolved into political diatribes and mish-mash. I still enjoy their early stuff — a lot. The rest was a disappointment, but few bands ever reach the level of creativity their early work had.
I think Mitch Easter deserves a lot of credit for the sound of the first album and in 1983 it sounded like nothing else. To me, their finest collection of songs is definitely “Dead Letter Office” for sheer inventiveness and is about as close to being “fun” as REM ever got. They cover Roger Miller and the Velvet Underground. I lost total interest after “Reckoning” but by that time there were too many other great bands competing (Husker Du, Replacements, Green on Red, Dinosaur jr. etc.)
The breakup of REM has got to rank up there with the biggest of inconsequential events in music history.
Once I’m in charge, rock ‘n roll bands will be forced to break up once any band member reaches the age of 33.
As someone who truly grew up with R.E.M. in the early and mid-1980s, I CRINGE every time I see “Automatic With The People” praised. To coin a phrase, that album was the End Of R.E.M. As We Knew It. Everything leading up to Document was fantastic, and that album, in 1987, was the opus that reached into the mainstream WITHOUT “selling out” all that was at the heart and soul of R.E.M.s music. Green (1988) and Out Of Time (1989) were steps into the inanity of pop-accessibility, but Automatic was the funeral march. When I hear someone praise that album, I can’t help but reach the conclusion that this was not a true R.E.M. fan from the time that R.E.M. was onto to something special – both new and old at the same time, cryptic yet sensibly pop, and the signature harmonies of Stipe and Mills which all but disappeared after 1986. So, for the music fan who truly wonders what R.E.M. was about and how they became known to the world, start with the 1982 EP Chronic Town. Then go through the next 5 albums in order – Murmur (1983), Recknoning (1984), Fables Of The Reconstruction (1985), Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), and Document (1987) … THEN QUIT!!!!! (Yes, they really did pump out an album every year back then). I’d even suggest trying New Adventures In Hi-Fi from 1996. It’s uneven but at times gives the only post-1987 glimpse of what made R.E.M. special. And “Everybody Hurts”, “Man On The Moon”, and “Nightswimming” AIN’T IT.
To H*ll with the naysayers! Excellent article and I agree in general with your your picks. I turned down a chance to see them in a bar in Raliegh in 1982 (can’t remember the name but it was famous in the 80′s as the best bar in NC to see new bands). I became a fan through the EPs and finally got to see them in 1983 at an outdoor event on UGA campus. Occasionally Stipe or the band would show up at the old 40 Watt Club under a psuedo name. One of my favorite songs was “Wendell Gee.” During the late 80′s and early 90′s I sort of lost interest in the band. My baby brother became a huge fan in the late 80′s and early 90′s. But when automatic for the people came, I was back in the fold.
I agree that Wide Spread Panic is an alright band but their success on the tour scene is dependent on the light cast on athen and Ga by REM and the B-52s. Athen was the best palce to see raw talent in the 80′s until the 90′s. Anybody a fan of the Bodeans and the Blasters? Finally saw both bands in clubs in Athens!
Baskethound – I was in Austin, TX in the mid-1980s. Not a bad place to see emerging talent either and that’s where I saw R.E.M. a couple times. There are a couple kind of “naysayers” here. Those who are criticizing the band overall, and those, like me, who are simply saying “hey, they declined a bit over time and those of us who loved them early sort of saw our crush wear off as the 80s turned to 90s”. When you say “during the late 80s and early 90s I sort of lost interest in the band” … it sounds like you are echoing my sentiments. We only differ in that I saw “Automatic” in 1992 as more proof of the decline, and for you it “brought you back into the fold”. I don’t think R.E.M. was an overrated band. I truly loved them. But I’ll stand by it forever that Automatic For The People ranks as one of the most, if not THE MOST overrated album of all time. Great band, flat album.