This definitive ranking of R.E.M.’s discography first appeared in 2017, several years after the band called it quits. It will remain not only to commemorate all the great music R.E.M. has given us over the years but also to burn like a candle — and keep vigil — just in case we one day get to add to it. Either way, we’ll keep going back to Rockville until it truly is the end of the world.
It’s been over 40 years since R.E.M. played their first show, a friend’s birthday party in an abandoned church in Athens, Georgia, on April 5th, 1980. It’s hard to believe that a band with a catalog we kept holstered, cocked, and ready throughout our adolescences have turned such an advanced age. (We also must acknowledge that we’ve been drifting through a slightly emptier world for some time now without Athens’ favorite sons.) This was a damn fine band when they were at the height of their powers, and they were nearly as fine when they officially hung it up in 2011.
You can’t make that claim for many bands. Then again, R.E.M. wasn’t like many other bands. And looking back through their body of work, you also realize they were far from a perfect band. But what made them special was a singular momentum that allowed them to evolve, adapt, and carry on. They always seemed to be figuring things out rather than polishing what they’d built and perfected.
The toll of popularity, rigors of touring the globe, losing a founding band member, pressures to follow up both groundbreaking and career-stalling records — none of these challenges, or any others, seemed to ever keep Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry down for very long. In fact, the band made a habit of coming back and feeling more indispensable than ever — gifting us albums, songs, and performances that once taken in can never be truly taken away.
We grew up on them, we grew with them, and now we’re growing old together… and we feel fine.
— Matt Melis
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