Tough call, this one. REM have such a long career, and a few drastic style changes along the way.

I could go for Orange Crush. It’s never let me down. It’s the epitome of US college rock for me. The first track on any college rock playlist. The reference point for a whole genre.

But then Losing My Religion comes long. Takes the same base materials and turns them into pop gold. It’s the point where people first noticed what a lyricist Stipe was.

And then they hit you with Everybody Hurts. Which transcends genre and artists completely – it’s not just a song, it’s part of our culture. It’s everywhere – and not in a bad way, either. It actually deserves its ubiquity. Everybody Hurts is difficult to look past. I might have other favourites, but it’s hard to deny that Everybody Hurts is objectively The One.

Along the way there are a lot of honourable mentions, not least for Nightswimming, Stand, Shiny Happy People, Bang and Blame, and Man on the Moon.

I want to vote for Orange Crush, but it’s Everybody Hurts, isn’t it? It has to be. Any other suggestions are just pretension and hipsterism.

Speaking of pretension and hipsterism, my friend Claire has written some good articles on REM over the years. These two were particularly nice:

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/reviews/albums/rem-automatic-for-the-people-25th-anniversary-deluxe-edition

http://www.clairebiddles.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/thewirerem.pdf

And that second one reminds me that Crush with Eyeliner is a fucking killer of a tune too.

I've never really liked REM. Wouldn't say I dislike them, but I don't think I'd ever choose to listen to them.

Looking at Wiki, I'd start with Losing My Religion, and finish with The Great Beyond, but probably at least half in between I don't know.

Double post silliness

Never been a big R.E.M fan, but always liked 'Leave'.

RedDave2 wrote:

Sweetness follows, country feedback and these days are some of my absolute fav but I don't know if they would be the quintessential rem track. Losing my religion is probably the best shout or maybe man on the moon but it's a hell of a list of songs to go from compared with the first 2 bands. (fwiw, my stone roses was probably she bangs the drum)

The thing is, I can see me going "oh yeah, that's a great one" every time someone mentions a new track.

Sweetness Follows is a great shout.

It's probably The Great Beyond.

New Test Leper
Hairshirt
Green Grow The Rushes
Disturbance at the Heron House
Tongue
Monty Got A Raw Deal

A few off the top of my head trying to avoid the obvious hits, properly great band.

They did all their best work before Bill Berry left tbh. I still bought all their stuff after that but their legacy would be looked on a lot more favourably if they had all decided to pack it in in 1997.

I've tried to like them but failed on every occasion. Also one of the most boring live bands I have ever seen and I've seen Coldplay.

The wife likes them though and she likes Nightswimming.

Yeah I saw them at Hyde Park and it was easily the best big gig I’ve been to, by a million miles.

Man on the Moon or Nightswimming for me. Losing my Religion is also ace.

The first take here re rem is the one.

Everybody hurts is kinda obvious, but its so good.

Note how many tracks mentioned are from automatic though. What an album.

RedDave2 wrote:

Gremill wrote:

I've tried to like them but failed on every occasion. Also one of the most boring live bands I have ever seen and I've seen Coldplay. The wife likes them though and she likes Nightswimming.

Just get out now please.

Horses for courses mate. I didn't say they were bad live, just boring. So, so boring. Then, I'm not a fan so that makes sense. They form part of the section in my brain labelled " I understand why they are beloved but they do nothing for me" which is also home to The Beatles, Springsteen and Dylan.

I think I’ll start my shortlist by album.

1983 - Murmur - Radio Free Europe
No, I wasn’t listening to them when I was four, I wouldn’t really get into them until about 1993, when my friend gently nudged me into their back catalogue by recording it onto blank cassettes I gave him.




1984 - Reckoning - (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville



1985 - Fables of the Reconstruction - Can’t Get There From Here
I forget how much I love this album. You’ve got to be in the right mood for it, or you’ll bounce right off it, but it’s beautiful. I think Driver 8 would be the more popular choice, but for me, CGTFH edges it. The closing track, Wendell Gee, came close.



1986 - Life’s Rich Pagaent - Fall On Me
A definite contender for my favourite track. In their MTV Unplugged session, Michael Stipe (looking beautiful) said it was possibly his favourite, at that time. They also did a beautiful version when they performed as Bingo Hand Job at the Borderline club. This is the original album version.



1987 - Document - King of Birds
Argh, this is a tough one. Finest Worksong, Exhuming McCarthy, Strange, It’s The End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), The One I Love, Fireplace, Lightnin’ Hopkins, all belters. But I was first listening to this stuff at the same time I was deeply in love with physics (yup) and the lyric, “Standing on the shoulders of giants leaves me cold,” echoing Isaac Newton, helped build my strong bond with this film. I mean, if we’re going for strict ‘the track of the band’ type rules, then Finest Worksong, The One I Love or ItEotWaWKI(AIFF) are the obvious picks, but my heart says this.



1988 - Green - Get Up
I’m going to guess that this is a lot of people’s third favourite R.E.M. album; in a world where so many people own the next two albums, I think the two albums that sit either side of that are as far as many venture. I might be wrong. It’s a great album. I nearly went for You Are Everything, an exquisite, meandering track, almost stream of consciousness. The title is just one of a few of the examples of the beautiful lyrics to be found. The jury is probably out on ‘drifting to sleep with your teeth in your mouth’, but I like the idea behind it. Also, seek out some of the videos. Pop Song 89 includes Stipe and three female dancers, all dancing topless. IIRC, when MTV insisted black bars be put over the dancers nipples, Stipe insisted that his nipples get the same treatment. The video for Stand also has some daft dancing to match the daft track.



1991 - Out of Time - Belong
The most popular tracks would be Radio Song, Losing My Religion, and Shiny Happy People. There’s a strong argument to say that Losing My Religion would define R.E.M. for a lot of people, and it is a great track. In this album, though, I think it is outperformed by Near Wild Heaven, Half a World Away, Texarkana, and Belong.



1992 - Automatic for the People - Find the River
I imagine a lot of people will agree with Poprock, that Losing My Religion is a pretty definitive track. It still can still move me to tears on pretty much any day of the week. I have a huge soft spot for Man on the Moon; somebody in my brother’s year got hold of the music, which showed the fingering for the chords. I was getting lessons in classical guitar at school, but Man on the Moon was my first step to teaching myself rhythm guitar, following the fingering and playing along to my recorded copy of the album. Because of the length of the album, for years I only had the start of Find the River, and it wasn’t until I was able to afford the tape, some time later, that I could listen the whole way through whenever I wanted.



1994 - Monster - What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
You’ve got to love a properly punctuated song title. I got this album for Christmas in 1994. I then got my first Saturday job in 1995, and got more hours over summer. I got to go and see the Monster tour at Murrayfield (supported by Spearhead, Belly and The Cranberries) and the cassette was on hard rotation in my Walkman all summer. As a result, I associate listening to this album with being on a bus on a Dark morning, heading to work.



1996 - New Adventures in Hi-Fi - Leave
I imagine this is where a lot of people who started buying R.E.M. albums at Out of Time, stopped. It’s a really unusual album, with some uneasy listening. I love it.



1998 - Up - Hope
At My Most Beautiful harks back to older (younger?) R.E.M. Lotus is more like a Monster track, while The Apologist and Sad Professor sound like they belong on New Adventures in Hi-Fi.



(1999 - Man on the Moon soundtrack - The Great Beyond)



2001 - Reveal - Imitation of Life



2004 - Around the Sun - Leaving New York
Check out The Outsider, Final Straw, Wanderlust, maybe Aftermath. I haven’t listened to this album enough.



2008 - Accelerate - Living Well is the Best Revenge
Also try Supernatural Superserious and Accelerate.



2011 - Collapse Into Now
I listened to this album when it came out, and I can’t recall going back to it since, so it’s safe to say I won’t pick anything from here. But, having gone back and listened to a bunch of stuff to right this, I’m going to remedy that. I’ve made three new playlists on my phone; Murmur - Life’s Rich Pageant, Document - Monster, New Adventures in Hi-Fi - Collapse Into Now, and I’ll work my way through them all this week. I’ve also nabbed Bingo Hand Job live at The Borderline on eBay.

Harborcoat.