I like doing this periodically because I never check my previous rankings until after, and it’s always fun (to me, at least) to see how albums shift up and down the list.
Onward!
- Out of Time (1991)
- Automatic for the People (1992)
- Monster (1994)
- Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
- Murmur (1983)
- New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
- Green (1988)
- Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
- Reckoning (1984)
- Document (1987)
- Up (1998)
- Accelerate (2008)
- Collapse Into Now (2011)
- Reveal (2001)
- Around the Sun (2004)
Notes:
- My current top 10 is every album before Bill Berry (drummer) left the band.
- Around the Sun (2004) will never move from #15.
- As I’ve grown older, I’ve started to appreciate experimental R.E.M. more.
- But their later experiments were sometimes more indulgent and didn’t work well.
- Accelerate is a fine album, but 18 years later, it feels like they were trying to rock just a little too hard.
- Out of Time is #1 because it’s got everything: the band is mature, confident, willing to experiment, but still very clearly having fun with it all. Also, I really like “Texarkana.”
- Monster is perhaps underrated. Yes, it’s got reverb and tremolo for days (years, really), but this was an album-length experiment that works. Stipe wears a different persona for every song, Buck’s guitar work is punchy and inventive and again, the band sounds like they are totally into the whole thing.
- I would not argue with anyone over picking Automatic for the People as #1. It’s everything that Out of Time is, but richer, more mature (in a good way) and at times, surprisingly beautiful.
- #5-9 could be in almost any order.
- Collapse Into Now is a good send-off, it’s brought down by some lesser tracks. The good ones, though, are very good.
- If I was recommending R.E.M. to someone unfamiliar with their work, I would pick these three albums: Out of Time, Automatic for the People, and Lifes Rich Pageant.