The greatest American rock band: The top 5 R.E.M. songs ever

August 12, 2023 9:12 PM

Luke O'Neil asked a bunch of people for their top 5 favorite R.E.M. songs. (scroll down a bit, or CTRL-F "andrew sacher")
posted by Etrigan (77 comments total)

No one puts "These Days" in their top five!
posted by kensington314 at 9:39 PM on August 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

i guess it's not "cool" to love "stand" and "shiny happy people", whine whine.

ok, for real: (1) talk about the passion (2) boxcars (3) don't go back to rockville (4) can't get there from here (5) fall on me. Somewhere after that I lost the thread. But I went backwards, finding out about them in 1985 or so, and then going back, album by album, until I was at Chronic Town which is the bestest.

thank you for indulging me.
posted by not_on_display at 10:10 PM on August 12, 2023 [5 favorites]

R.E.M. were definitely better than Van Halen, Bon Jovi and Bryan (fucking) Adams ... and Journey. combined.

according to a list I put together by mistake recently, their cover of The Clique's Superman is their absolute high water mark.

I'm also partial to Talk About The Passion, which is more or less U2's entire discography in less than three minutes. Except better.
posted by philip-random at 10:24 PM on August 12, 2023 [15 favorites]

I think my list would change pretty much every day, and maybe depending on what time of the day you asked me, but "Fall on Me" is always going to be on it, yet it might not be #1 most of the time. Interesting (to me).

One person noted that "Hope" was a co-write with Leonard Cohen, but I don't think it was quite like that - the story I heard was that they did the song and then realized "oh shit, we just ripped off 'Suzanne'" so they gave Cohen a writing credit.

Interesting mix in the article of people defending obvious choices along with pulling out some pretty deep cuts like "Kohoutek".
posted by LionIndex at 10:35 PM on August 12, 2023 [7 favorites]

With the caveat that there are so many songs I’d’ve thought of as my top five R.E.M. songs, that I feel like going through their discography and apologizing (sorry Feeling Gravitys Pull, sorry Near Wild Heaven, sorry Walk Unafraid, sorry Don’t Go Back to Rockville, sorry Talking About the Passion, sorry sorry sorry etc)

5. So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)

It’s the most R.E.M. sounding song on the most R.E.M. sounding album.

4. It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)

The greatest of all karaoke songs.

3. Sweetness Follows

It’s like being in a sensory deprivation tanks with only your thoughts for company but your inner monologue sounds like Michael Stipe.

2. Why Not Smile

R.E.M. have a lot of songs that just want to help, and this one has helped me the most.

1. Country Feedback

At their best it felt like R.E.M. opened up a conduit between their subconscious and your subconscious and this is R.E.M. at their best.
posted by Kattullus at 11:24 PM on August 12, 2023 [11 favorites]

Let's review the choices... these are just my opinions, man:

Feeling Gravitys Pull - I am conflicted about this one, I think it would have rocked harder on Document with the better production (I mean it's little like Oddfellows right?) and it doesn't quite fit the overall theme of Fables, which is the only REM concept album

Orange Crush - Strong choice, all four band members are rocking to the max. And Peter's harmonics solo ftw.

The One I Love - A little overplayed, and suffers from knowing that Stipe had been dating Natalie Merchant, and knowing that Alton Brown was one of the directors of the video

Harborcoat - You gotta have a song off of Reckoning, and this one is classic REM with unknowable mumble lyrics, overlapping vocal parts and a brisk disco beat, and closer to their live performances

Losing My Religion - Great song, the Stairway of mandolin ... I just ... can't enjoy it anymore because I've heard it so many times.

Country Feedback - I agree there's something sublime about this one

Radio Free Europe - Great debut single, but not the best track on Murmur

Fall On Me - It's a perfectly cromulent song, has all the elements. One of my faves but I can't say my favorite because Stipe said its his favorite

What's the Frequency, Kenneth? - Guy with "Sickos" shirt saying "YES!"

Nightswimming - The last three songs on this album are so good I just pretend that the band broke up afterwards
posted by credulous at 11:50 PM on August 12, 2023 [9 favorites]

We once saw Dan Rather talking on a pay phone
in new Orleans airport. Naturally we screamed " what's the frequency Kenneth" at him.
posted by Keith Talent at 12:08 AM on August 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

(I'd just like to make a note that this throwaway sentence by S. I. Rosenbaum was an unexpectedly profound thought to encounter in a series of listicles about an old rock band):

"My father-in-law has Alzheimer’s and talking to him is getting harder as he loses language. But talking to him is like listening to an R.E.M. song; listen long enough and you get a sense of where he is, an outline of a shape."
posted by Kattullus at 12:09 AM on August 13, 2023 [18 favorites]

R.E.M. were definitely better than Van Halen, Bon Jovi and Bryan (fucking) Adams ... and Journey. combined.

I'd be interested in seeing the Venn diagram of how much overlap there is between their respective fan groups.
posted by fairmettle at 3:53 AM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

5. Voice of Harold
4. Perfect Circle
3. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
2. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
1. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville

QFT: Any band sucks if you love them hard enough to pay attention
posted by chavenet at 4:14 AM on August 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

Mod note: one deleted by poster's request
posted by taz (staff) at 5:02 AM on August 13, 2023

This was such a beautiful read - R.E.M. is one of my favorite bands, and I think there’s something about them that just makes people who love them strive to find a way to match their jangly poetry when it comes to describing their music and its effect on them - but this was something special. I’m kind of shocked how many people put What’s the Frequency, Kenneth and Driver 8 in their top 5’s - they’re both fantastic songs but universally at the top? Normally when I disagree with lists I get itchy to argue, but here I’m just pulling up an R.E.M. playlist on Spotify and listening to everything all over again and let’s see where my top five ends up in light of all these elegies…

I was glad to see someone shouting out Stand and The Chris Elliot Show. Also not a top five for me, but definitely an always honorable mention for making me smile.

Thanks for posting this!
posted by Mchelly at 5:42 AM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Pretty Persuasion
A Carnival of Sorts
Ebow The Letter
It’s the End of the World
Radio Free Europe

Three notes: How the West Was Won is a seriously underrated record. I like it better than “Automatic for the People.”

I almost put “Me in Honey” on this list.

I always skip/ fast forward through “Nightswimming.”
posted by thivaia at 5:42 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

My thoughts immediately went to "Voice of Harold." I had Dead Letter Office long before I had Reckoning, so I think I was always wondering why they had used such great music for such a goof.
posted by snofoam at 5:57 AM on August 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

Andrew Futral and Rachel Browne get it.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:00 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I almost put “Me in Honey” on this list.

You should have put put “Me in Honey” on this list. It's a great oddity to end a solid album. In 1990-91, I was working for Sony selling Walkmans and Discmans and stereos and the people working there all veto powers over what was played. We eventually learned there were only two (recent) albums that everyone dug, so I have heard Out of Time and Fishbone's Truth and Soul approximately eleventeen thousand times each. "Radio Song" is an underwhelming opener, but I still generally the album decades later.

But "Fall on Me" is immaculate.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:04 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

As mentioned by several, the list can change day-to-day. Luckily there is always another treasure to move up the list when I've over-listened. Recently New Test Leper and Cuyahoga moved up to replace Everybody Hurts and Imitation of Life. However Find the River is still at the top.
posted by TreeRooster at 6:16 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

5 Fall On Me
4 Losing My Religion
3 Driver 8
2 You Are the Everything
1 Leave

Basically it’s Leave and then I had to go figure out what the other four would be.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:23 AM on August 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

I flagged my own post because it ended up sounding much more harsh / provocative than I intended, sorry for that folks !
+ I should know better by now : \
posted by clandestiny's child at 6:24 AM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is bit of a movable feast since it's hard to get it down to less than, say, 45 songs, but for today at least my top 5 is:

(Untitled)
So Fast, So Numb
These Days
You Are The Everything
Superman

Just don't ask me to put them in order. It would be like asking me to rank my children.
posted by YoungStencil at 6:25 AM on August 13, 2023

Arms of Love, anyone ... someone?

Also, TIL that Superman is a cover.
posted by scruss at 6:41 AM on August 13, 2023

Nightswimming is perhaps my favorite song, period.

After that, there are gobs of songs that could make up the rest of my top five on any given day.

As for today…

Pilgrimage
What if we give it away?
Sidewinder sleeps tonight
Catapult
posted by MorgansAmoebas at 6:44 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

It probably has to do with my age, but I think Pageant was the apex of early REM, then they were in a holding pattern from Document through Out of Time and things happened to come together for Automatic to be a surprise masterpiece. I am familiar with almost no REM after that. REM is a bit of an exception for me, since most of my favorite albums by bands I liked in my teens came out in 1989.
posted by snofoam at 6:44 AM on August 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

I was out last night for Pride at a video bar packed with a mix of shirtless gays. When the TVs started looking all Caravaggio-y I didn’t believe it. But yeah, apparently there’s a eurobeat club mix of Loaing My Religion. And everyone sang along… though sadly you couldn’t hear the mandolin.
posted by sixswitch at 7:07 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Like many of the respondents, my top REM tracks vary on a regular basis so I couldn't argue with any of the lists. Some of the takes I could, but overall this worked for me.

But ask me tomorrow, though...
posted by tommasz at 7:31 AM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

clandestiny's child - you're being too hard on yourself. Ok perhaps in the context of folks choosing their fave songs your comment was misplaced but by no means invalid. In fact, it merits a post on its own and might trigger a great discussion. My life and work has allowed me to listen to music all day for decades, maybe 6 of 'em. I'm sometimes astonished how my ears learn and adjust over time to new soundscapes which once would have baffled and frankly, irritated me. Music I once thought unlistenable and deep down was convinced to my shame that no one else could genuinely like (e.g. any soprano voice in classical music) I learnt to love. Nowadays, I rarely think in terms of 'do I like this or not?' but rather, what is he or she doing? how do they hear the world, what kind of musical language is theirs and why? It's a privilege, it seems to me, to be allowed to enter these private realms of sound. In the process, I certainly encountered and absolutely loved REM and ten zillion others but would probably not go back there now. Not better or worse but simply cos the old ears do not stand still! Haha. I hope this comment will be seen as a benign broadening rather than a brute derail.
posted by dutchrick at 7:38 AM on August 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

1. Nightswimming
2. Every single other song up through New Adventures in Hi-Fi, tied
3. I don't know, maybe that one from UP they stole from Leonard Cohen?

There is no fourth or fifth place. I will die on this hill.
posted by heyitsgogi at 7:55 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wow, so many to choose from, but here goes:

1. Nightswimming
2. Don’t Go Back to Rockville
3. World Leader Pretend
4. Fall on Me
5. Radio Free Europe
posted by Petersondub at 7:58 AM on August 13, 2023

Finest Worksong - Orange Crush - Country Feedback - What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? - Me in Honey.

I can’t order these more specifically, this is just the first tier. By a hair. One year in the pandemic I was in the top 3% of all REM listeners and I always say I don’t even like REM that much and both of those things are true.
posted by kerf at 8:12 AM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

I can't make a top 5 but this thread is reminding me of songs I haven't thought of in ages.

I almost put “Me in Honey” on this list.

When I was going through the breakup of the most horrific relationship of my life, that song came out and perfectly echoed the noise in my head. It's one of the ones I hadn't thought of and yikes the memories.

I also love Nightswimming, Don't Go Back to Rockville and Shiny Happy People, which, weirdly, was on the same album as Me in Honey and so was ubiquitous at that time.
posted by maggiemaggie at 8:13 AM on August 13, 2023

We could be having this discussion just about covers. There aren't many other bands of their size and era who were so happy to release cover versions on their main records for so long into their career.
posted by YoungStencil at 8:15 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

We once saw Dan Rather talking on a pay phone
in new Orleans airport. Naturally we screamed " what's the frequency Kenneth" at him.

Naturally? (via NYT)
"Tthe man who punched and kicked him appears to be the same man who, in 1994, fatally shot an NBC stagehand outside Rockefeller Center.

And in both cases, the motive was distrust and suspicion of the news media, said Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist who examined the man, William Tager, after the shooting of the stagehand, Campbell Theron Montgomery, 33."
posted by stevil at 8:18 AM on August 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hmm. (OK I am basically Document to Out of Time, I did like Automatic, but I really kinda am not super into the softer piano side of things in the grand scheme so they don't rate. Drive was good off it)

Country Feedback
Orange Crush
The One I love
End of the World (sorry not sorry - it's better than We Didn't Start the Fire)

Bonuses:
Low
World Leader Pretend
posted by symbioid at 8:23 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Fall On Me is also good!
posted by symbioid at 8:24 AM on August 13, 2023

Wait! Wait! “Belong,” I meant “Belong!”
I have to stop now. I could do this forever. They were so good. For a while they were The Best Band In The World.
posted by kerf at 8:24 AM on August 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Guys, what about Man On The Moon? That gorgeous video and Michael Stipe doing that little Elvis hip swivel

(That one was definitely a favorite of mine for a while)
posted by maggiemaggie at 8:28 AM on August 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Oh god this is impossible. Impossible!

Nightswimming, Find the River, Try Not to Breathe, Sweetness Follows, Oh My Heart, You Are the Everything, World Leader Pretend, Daysleeper, Strange Currencies, Half a World Away.

Yes, and What's the Frequency Kenneth.

(I broke the rules!)
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:02 AM on August 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

I saw REM on the Green tour. Robyn Hitchcock opened!

I "discovered" REM from the Green album (I was probably 17). And then they honestly kind of lost me after that album. They became more of a jangly-ballad band. Some of the post-Green music is great! And many of those ballads are really great, too. Just not as much my cup of tea. Their recording/mixing quality became great with Green and only got better after that.

Extremely talented band. Soundtrack of my youth. I always appreciated that they stuck together, didn't (seem) to get into petty squabbles, we didn't get any goofy Stipe "EDM/Disco/Symphonic experimental" solo projects (or whatever) during that era. They were REM and stayed REM. I liked that.
posted by SoberHighland at 9:07 AM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

My brain is bad at ranking favorites, but I'll say that "I Believe" is up there for me but doesn't seem to be on anyone else's top five except the first commenter in the article.
posted by indexy at 9:19 AM on August 13, 2023

but I think Pageant was the apex of early REM, then they were in a holding pattern from Document through Out of Time and things happened to come together for Automatic to be

definitely a band of phases, which speaks to their durability. If you don't work some evolution into your output, the zeitgeist will lose interest. I stuck with them through:

a. the mystery and mumble phase (everything up to and including Fables of the Reconstruction)

b. the articulate and ummmm ... still rather mysterious phase (Life's Rich Pageant through Green)

c. the world conquer pretend phase (Out of Time through to ... ?)

I sort of checked out during phase C. They clearly didn't need me anymore. I'm not going to argue that Automatic For The People isn't a great album -- I just wasn't that interested in going there with them. The video for Drive felt awfully world-saviour-pretend.

Monster was the last album I actually listened to when it was new. Past that, my focus was fixed elsewhere. Which doesn't mean I haven't since heard and enjoyed some of their stuff ... with Leave a particular standout. In fact, it very probably would rate in my all time top five. I mentioned Superman and Talk About the Passion already, which I guess gives me two more.

Oddfellows Local and ... a five way tie between Cuyahoga, Country Feedback, Man on the Moon, Feeling Gravity's Pull and Gardening at Night.
posted by philip-random at 9:33 AM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Belong, especially the version on Unplugged.
posted by neuron at 9:36 AM on August 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

you're being too hard on yourself. Ok perhaps in the context of folks choosing their fave songs your comment was misplaced but by no means invalid. In fact, it merits a post on its own and might trigger a great discussion.

Thank you for saying so, my intention was good but I think you're right, this thread was clearly the wrong one to go off on that tangent. Maybe some other time... I do stand by the recommendation to check out the nova episodes on perception ("perception deception" and "who's in control") but I'm already going off track again so I'll shut up now. :)
posted by clandestiny's child at 10:03 AM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

"These Days" was my favorite song of all songs, before I knew it was about dropping your hat in the ocean.
And it still is.
posted by booth at 11:01 AM on August 13, 2023

Sweetness Follows, Belong, Losing My Religion, Half A World Away, and Nightswimming. I was in high school when Out of Time and Automatic happened, so those are the ones that hit me most squarely. I got into Document after Out of Time but had a lot of fondness for that album too. Oh! And I like random things from their later work, like Daysleeper and The Outsiders.

My kids gave me the book Perfect Circle for Christmas a couple years back. It's a great biography of the band if you're enough of a fan to commit to nearly 500 pages of R.E.M. history. They did a ton of things really well on the business side of the house, which the book lays out pretty well. It also filled in a lot of gaps for me in understanding what happened with R.E.M. after I went off to college and such.
posted by sockshaveholes at 11:24 AM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Hey, glad to see Voice of Harold mentioned here. That s the one that pops into my head, anyway

They re all good songs, brent
posted by eustatic at 12:15 PM on August 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

Kinda shocked that Wind Out wasn't included in any of the lists. That Bachelor Party soundtrack was their best decision ever. /s
posted by Chuffy at 12:20 PM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

5. Strange Currencies
4. So. Central Rain
3. Bang and Blame
2. Let Me In
1. E-bow the Letter

Niko Stratis is my favourite music writer these days so I'm delighted to see her here
posted by avocet at 12:50 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Kinda shocked that Wind Out yt wasn't included

second time I saw them, the Fables tour, Windout was part of the encore. Except it was way longer. They just tore into it, a proper psychedelic rave up. Stipe ended up howling like a runaway train. Really quite amazing. That whole show was top notch -- one of those everything-sounded-better-live situations.
posted by philip-random at 1:15 PM on August 13, 2023

I completed a difficult, tedious, and lengthy DIY home improvement project during Covid and listened to only REM as both a treat and a way to sink deeply into some of the albums I don’t know as well. I started with Automatic, jumped to Fables, then Monster, and so on, sometimes looping back. But I ended with Collapse Into Now and I do not know how anyone can listen to Blue without sobbing joyfully at the incredible way this band ended their artistic journey. It is the way everyone always says they want to go out: vital, grateful, proud, and eager for what’s next.

Anyway, and obviously, but in no order because I cannot:
Blue
Bang and Blame
So. Central Rain
Daysleeper
The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
Begin the Begin
posted by minervous at 1:29 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

As an aside, I used to work with a guy who had been a guitar tech for Peter Buck. He said the most important part of the job was setting up the little toy dinosaurs on top of his amps.
posted by indexy at 1:39 PM on August 13, 2023 [12 favorites]

Texarkana or bust.
posted by mykescipark at 1:51 PM on August 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

In no particular order:

Driver 8 - Fall On Me - The One I Love - It’s The End Of The World As We Know It - Whatever random track takes me back to my high school/college days
posted by Eikonaut at 2:51 PM on August 13, 2023

"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" was more popular than I expected.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:26 PM on August 13, 2023

5. Superman, because this is my list and this is the first song I can remember ever becoming a fan of (I would've been five or six years old, I guess?)
4. What's the Frequency, Kenneth, which could be Star 69 or Crush With Eyeliner, Monster was both a huge hit and super-underappreciated in its time, somehow.
3. Losing My Religion, because who am I to argue with the facts here, and also I have taught myself to play guitar before, so I have become intimiately familiar with this song, which remains gorgeous to this day.
2. E-Bow the Letter, which I can't describe except that its beauty is sneaky and pervasive.
1. Nightwswimming, placed at the top simply because it's the most beautiful one.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:32 PM on August 13, 2023

Articles and threads like this tend to amaze me, because I’m squarely the right age and demographic for REM fandom, I am a fan, grew up listening to them, I’m pretty sure I’ve listened to every album and yet here’s a bunch of lists with songs that I don’t know, songs I know but had forgotten until they were mentioned, and songs I know I know really well but can’t remember how it goes (until I hear about 1/4 second of the intro and then I remember it all). It’s a testament to the breadth of their catalogue that I could have a top 5 list of songs made up of ones where I said ‘oh yeah, that’s a good one!’
posted by TwoWordReview at 3:54 PM on August 13, 2023 [6 favorites]

Damn, Driver 8.
Such a great song.

Tangentially, I saw REM live just once, at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1989 on the Green tour.

They blew absolute chunks. I mean it was terrible. And I love REM, since ever. The openers, The Blue Aeroplanes, were better.

I never did understand what happened there. Maybe it was me, not them.
posted by chavenet at 4:27 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I saw them in Montreal my first year at McGill, 1987. It was alright, got to hangout with a crush.
They were iconic to me for so long.

5. Driver 8. Yeah!
4. Superman, just the most inspired cover ever.
3. Radio Free Europe
2. Sweetness Follows. Jesus. On this record, they just transcend
1. So. Central Rain. Always a place for this at the top of my lists.
posted by northtwilight at 4:40 PM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

"Nightswimming"
"Radio Song"
"Man on the Moon"
"The One I Love"
"Orange Crush"
But this is at the top of the list for me:
"First We Take Manhattan" (a truly remarkable cover of the Leonard Cohen song, that guitar tone *rips*)
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:55 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Glad to see I'm not the only fan of Daysleeper in here! Special place in my heart since my dad worked nights I always think of him.
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:20 PM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

R.E.M. - Live at the Raleigh Underground (10th October 1982)

Plop me down in a time machine for five songs, those are my new top 5
posted by credulous at 6:46 PM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wow, it's funny how everyone's faves are all different? I didn't really follow them closely, but I might have to do some more back-tracking now...
posted by ovvl at 6:51 PM on August 13, 2023

I also always liked I Believe, funny since Michael Stipe thinks it’s his worst vocal performance with the band.
posted by sixswitch at 7:38 PM on August 13, 2023

I'm watching a 1981 performance and didn't realize "What If We Give It Away" came from an earlier song called "Why Don't They Get On Their Way" (in the 1981 show Stipe claimed it only had "two written lines" so I guess it evolved)

And I keep forgetting about "What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?" but damn, instead of hanging it up they made a rocker that no one expected (listen to Mike's bass in isolation, and then with the band, and hear what a mofo he is)
posted by credulous at 7:57 PM on August 13, 2023

I can't listen to less than an album by r e.m., so I'm putting my fav album, in no order:

Country Feedback
Belong
Drive
World Leader Pretend
Exhuming McCarthy
Don't Go Back To Rockville
Can't Get There From Here
Driver 8
What If We Give It Away?
You Are The Everything
Fretless
Fall On Me
Me in Honey


I could easily make another few albums. Wow.
posted by riverlife at 8:00 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

And I immediately have to, because how can I not listen to

Superman
So. Central Rain
Cuyahoga
Begin The Begin
These Days
Finest Worksong
The One I Love
Man On The Moon
Welcome To The Occupation
Daysleeper
Oddfellows Local 151
Disturbance At The Heron House
Lightning Hopkins

I mean we're just getting started right?? There's not even a Losing My Religion to be seen yet. Don't see a Radio Free Europe nor a Talk About The Passion. I mean, wow is this band awesome and deeeep. I've always known but trying to pull five songs, that's impossibly ridiculous. :) Thanks for the fun post!
posted by riverlife at 8:27 PM on August 13, 2023

Just a Touch (live in 1980) probably the best and darkest song about Elvis
posted by credulous at 8:33 PM on August 13, 2023

No one puts "These Days" in their top five!

Sure - I will. They opened with it when I saw them way back in Fall '87. They have so much great stuff, but the favorites for me are always from the IRS albums that I air guitared to eighty billion times in high school, so:
- These Days
- Talk About The Passion
- pretty much anything off Reckoning, so let's say Letter Never Sent
- Let's say Finest Worksong

And there's a bunch from Automatic For the People to choose from, so I'll say Try Not To Breathe.
posted by chbrooks at 9:05 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

These Days is an A+++ song
posted by thivaia at 9:09 PM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

REM was initially a dance band. People describe the floor of Tyrone's moving up and down and the windows pumping in and out like a bellows. You can't hear those early recordings and not at least pogo! I mean check out this early version of Don't Go Back To Rockville
posted by credulous at 9:12 PM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Also, coming back to note that “Document” is such a great record and I swear I’m not just saying that because it was this Southern Appalachian girl’s introduction to Wire.
posted by thivaia at 9:12 PM on August 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

psst: if you play the first verse of 'begin the begin' backward, there is a cryptic message.

Same with the first line in 'low'.

don't ask how i know—i was bored in college.
posted by not_on_display at 11:17 PM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

I grew up on a farm called Rockville, and I heeded REM’s advice at a really important time in my life.

So that is all of my top 5 right there.
posted by honey-barbara at 3:31 AM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]

R.E.M. was a central part of my high school in a Southern small town. I owned Automatic back to Fables and listened to the earlier tapes my friends had.

In no order:
Orange Crush - first R.E.M. song I knew/loved
Maps and Legends
I Believe
So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)
Exhuming McCarthy - high school history lessons in the South never got to the McCarthy era so this was a vocab and history lesson for me, pre Internet

Song my boyfriend at the time would play on his guitar while we talked on the phone for hours: Driver 8

Fav album - toss up between Fables and Life’s Rich Pagent
posted by jilloftrades at 4:33 AM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Exhuming McCarthy

Sometimes I make up different words, like "exuding malarkey," "eluding my car keys," and so on.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:32 AM on August 14, 2023 [8 favorites]

For some reason I didn't pay attention to REM until 1987, when I picked up a sampler cassette at a garage sale that had End of the World and One I Love among other IRS songs (which is how I also discovered X 5 years late).

5. Cuyahoga
4. Crazy (that Pylon cover)
3. Country Feedback
2. Losing My Religion
1. E-Bow the Letter
posted by morspin at 2:50 PM on August 15, 2023

A Weezer fan declares REM the greatest American rock band? That makes sense I guess. I was struggling with a proper, thoughtful response to an REM listicle, but then I remembered this fantastic podcast series.
posted by Neologian at 8:13 PM on August 15, 2023

Nightswimming, Fall on Me, Sweetness Follows, Drive. And, in all its corniness, Everybody Hurts, because it absolutely saved some adolescent lives. So hold on....
posted by jokeefe at 4:44 PM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]