Vacation In Athens, GA: The Top 20 R.E.M. Songs

These are my personal favorites. The most difficult Top 20 I have ever had to compile and it could literally change on a daily basis and even contain 20 completely different songs.......


01. Talk About The Passion (Murmur, 1983)
02. So. Central Rain (Reckoning, 1984)
03. Driver 8 (Fables Of The Reconstruction, 1985)
04. Exhuming McCarthy (Document No. 5, 1987)
05. Star Me Kitten (Automatic For The People, 1992)
06. Don't Go Back To Rockville (Reckoning, 1984)
07. What If We Give It Away? (Life's Rich Pageant, 1986)
08. Radio Free Europe (Murmur, 1983)
09. Cuyahoga (Life's Rich Pageant, 1986)
10. Ignoreland (Automatic For The People, 1992)
11. Fall On Me (Life's Rich Pageant, 1986)
12. Gardening At Night (Chronic Town, 1982)
13. Radio Song (Out Of Time, 1991)
14. Perfect Circle (Murmur, 1983)
15. Belong (Out Of Time, 1991)
16. Pretty Persuasion (Reckoning, 1984)
17. World Leader Pretend (Green, 1988)
18. I've Been High (Reveal, 2001)
19. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight (Automatic For The People, 1992)
20. Can't Get There From Here (Fables Of The Reconstruction, 1985)

• I wanted to include "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" but I am one of those guys who gets really bothered when people sing the words to a song incorrectly, and that song gets butchered, like none other. It's a great song, but that fact alone ruins it for me.
• Speaking of which, trying to figure out what Michael Stipe is singing is one of the best things about the band. I'd like to say it is mere pretentiousness, but I have heard that Stipe liked to go see tribute bands just to see how his lyrics were deciphered by others. I think that is extraordinary if true. They could have simply called themselves "The Hamburglars" if you listen to some of their earlier, indecipherable work.
• Stipe insisted that many of his early lyrics were "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level.
• Ignoring that last sentence, listen to "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" from "Automatic For The People".
• Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Bill Berry take most of the credit for the success of this band, but the talents of bassist Mike Mills should never be overlooked. Listen to his bass during the "Straight off the boat, where to go?" section of "Radio Free Europe", or the intro to "Laughing"? That song has three separate melodies in its three minutes of existence, and they're all amazing.
• The more I listen to "Perfect Circle" the more I want to move it all the way up to number one. The more I listen to "Moral Kiosk" (from the Murmur LP), the more I want to add it to the list. In fact, I could easily put all of "Murmur" on here. I'd have to say that "Murmur", "Automatic For The People" and "Document" are my top three R.E.M. albums. I don't want to diminish the greatness of "Out Of Time" or "Life's Rich Pageant", either. Both are works of art.
• Too many R.E.M. fans don't give their post-1987 stuff a lot of credit. Besides, "Automatic For The People", 2001's "Reveal" is a great album. "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" is damn good as well. I like to challenge my friends in this regard, too; Had R.E.M. not come along until 1992 instead of debuting in 1982, the album "Monster" could easily be considered their best work and would certainly get more recognition. Discuss amongst yourselves.
• Seriously, "Monster" is a very, very good album, and "Bang & Blame", "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?", "Star 69" and "Strange Currencies" could have easily made this list. Perhaps the best way to do this is to separate the pre-1987 stuff from the post-1987 stuff and compile two lists. Too often, hardcore R.E.M. fans convince themselves that there are literally two separate and distinct versions of the band. That same creativity is there, the talent is there and the writing is definitely there and fans should give the later stuff a chance.
• Nobody makes their drums sound like the ones in the beginning of "Catapult" anymore. That is a sound of a lost era and it is never coming back.
• This band broke in 1983, in the midst of post-punk and overblown heavy-metal with a sound that was distinct of any other. How cool is that?
• I bet you have never listened to the song "Find The River" from the "Automatic For The People" album. Or, at the very least, you cannot imagine the sound of that song as you are reading this. It is a truly wonderful song and should be on this list as well. Take five minutes and go listen. Just make sure you come back and finish reading this article.
• "Man On The Moon", I think, has the catchiest chorus ever. It didn't make the list today, but if I wrote this tomorrow, it probably would.
• There is only one song that will never make my list, and that is "Stand" from the "Green" album. No pun intended, but I just can't stand that song.
• The subtle Hammond organ that really makes "Everybody Hurts" so beautifully sad and such an uncharacteristically straightforward ballad is masterful.
• I once had a friend in college who told me that Huey Lewis & The News would be more popular than R.E.M. and ultimately, be looked upon as the greatest band from the mid-1980s when all was said and done - may his soul be forgiven for that terrible indiscretion of opinion.
• "Out Of Time" is such a good album that when my house burned down in 2005 and I lost all of my music, it was the first CD I replaced, literally buying it the next day, and listening to it for a year straight. Because I had so many other things I needed to buy, sadly, replacing my music wasn't something I could start for years. More songs from this album would have made this list had I not played that CD so many times from 2005 through late 2006, which is when I could finally afford to buy my next CD.
• Thanks to the line "Combien du temps?" from "Talk About The Passion", I took French as my foreign language elective, believing that almost every mumbled lyric in every R.E.M. song was something in French. That wasn't true, French is extremely difficult to learn and master, and my GPA suffered terribly. For those who don't know, "Combien du temps?" translates to "how much time?" I transferred to Spanish class second semester.
• In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described typical R.E.M. songs as, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true." I think I first coined that description in 1984. No joke.

Here are all of the R.E.M. albums (excluding greatest hits compilations and the like), ordered from my most favorite to least liked. Again. discuss amongst yourselves and thanks for reading.

01. Murmur (1983)
02. Automatic For The People (1992)
03. Document (1987)
04. Out Of Time (1991)
05. Fables Of The Reconstruction (1985)
06. Reckoning (1984)
07. Monster (1994)
08. Green (1988)
09. Reveal (2001)
10. Around The Sun (2004)
11. Chronic Town/Dead Letter Office (1982)
12. New Adventures In Hi-Fi (1996)
13. Up (1998)
14. Accelerate (2008)

"Collapse Into Now" is the upcoming fifteenth studio album by R.E.M., scheduled to be released in April 2011. The album is produced by Jacknife Lee, and features guest appearances by Patti Smith, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Peaches and Lenny Kaye.

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