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August 2019 | Rolling Stone | 87

and R.E.M. responded with their

angriest LP. Buck deployed loads

of punk-rock distortion, and

Stipe sang with critical rage on

songs like “I Took Your Name”

and “Crush With Eyeliner.”

What emerged was a hard-

nosed assessment of celeb-

rity, with Stipe singing at

his most adventurous;

on “King of Comedy,”

he played a growling

anti-corporate rocker,

and ascended into a sassy

falsetto during the feminist

soul entreaty “Tongue.”

Reveal

2001

In 1997, Berry left the band due

in part to health issues, depriv-

ing R.E.M. of its unwavering

engine. After 1998’s rudderless

Up, they righted the ship on

FURTHER READING

More Gems

Highlights and rarities from

the rest of their catalog

“PERMANENT VACATION”

Unreleased, 1980

An image of the future giants

as infant bar band, playing wiry,

Elvis Presley-tinged rock & roll

at Ramones velocity.

“RADIO FREE EUROPE”

Single, 1981

Recorded about a year after

their first show, R.E.M.’s debut

single (collected on the 1988

Eponymous comp) is a sharper,

speedier animal than the ver-

sion they cut for Murmur.

“AGES OF YOU”

Dead Letter Office, 1987

A crisp song about knotty feel-

ing, this early fan favorite never

found an album (finally showing

up on their 1987 outtakes and

B-sides set, Dead Letter Office).

“CRAZY”

Dead Letter Office, 1987

R.E.M. were always excessively

cool about giving shine to small-

er bands; here they do a moody

cover of a classic by Athens

dance-punk heroes Pylon.

“AT MY MOST BEAUTIFUL”

Up, 1998

The peak of the first post-Berry

LP, Up; it’s their version of the

Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,”

rendered as a pick-me-up from

one sad tomato to another.

“ALL THE RIGHT FRIENDS”

In Time, 2003

One of the first songs R.E.M.

wrote, brimming with sulky

AM-radio innocence; it sat for

years until Cameron Crowe used

it in the 2001 movie Vanilla Sky.

“LEAVING NEW YORK”

Around the Sun, 2004

Opening their lackluster 2004

LP, Around the Sun, this soaring

folk-rock tune might be Stipe’s

finest breakup lament.

“MIKE’S POP SONG”

Automatic for the People:

25th Anniversary, 2017

Most bands would kill for a song

as pretty as this Mills-sung demo

from Automatic for the People;

for R.E.M. it was an afterthought.

We mortals can only marvel.

New Adventures

in Hi-Fi

1996

Recorded on the road and

inspired (in part) by their 1995

tourmates Radiohead, the last LP

of R.E.M.’s golden age took Mon-

ster’s heavy sound into darker,

craggier emotional and musical

territory. “The Wake-Up Bomb”

embraces chaos for its own

sake, and on the opener, “How

the West Was Won and Where It

Got Us,” they make sadness feel

hymnlike. But there’s tenderness

too; “New Test Leper” big-ups

T. Rex’s Marc Bolan and earnestly

quotes Jesus, hungering for

solace in a fallen world.

Perfect Circle:

The Story of R.E.M.

By Tony Fletcher

It’s to R.E.M.’s credit that

their story lacks the ego

and excess that make for a

splashy rock bio. Fletcher’s

thorough treatment is

the best account of their

tasteful career, with espe-

cially revealing passages

on the band’s struggle

to move on after Berry’s

departure and the emo-

tional recording of

their final albums.

Going

Deeper

Fables of the

Reconstruction

1985

The band traveled to London to

make its third LP, with Joe Boyd,

who had produced folk-rock

classics for Nick Drake and

Fairport Convention. The watery

guitars started getting murky,

which ended up being a pretty

nice fit for the beleaguered

Southern Gothic mood of “Driver

8” and “Green Grow the Rushes.”

The brooding spirit is broken

for “Life and How to Live It,” a

Accelerate

2008

R.E.M. once rivaled U2 as the big-

gest band in the world, but their

profile plunged in the post-Berry

era. Fans who thought they’d

never rock again were pleasantly

surprised by Accelerate, their

first LP after a four-year break.

They sound a touch rusty on “I’m

Gonna DJ,” but Buck leveraged

a Monster-size riff on the single

Reveal, with

Stipe unfurling Pet

Sounds-worthy whimsy

on “Summer Turns Too High”

and writing one of his most

luminous ballads, “Beat a Drum.”

“Imitation of Life” was their final

classic hit, taking its title from a

film by Fifties director Douglas

Sirk, a Stipe-level master at

lushly subverting gender norms

and societal straitjackets.

bright,

slashing

Buck highlight, and

the fun New Wave boogie “Can’t

Get There From Here,” their first

unguarded shot at a radio hit.

“Supernatural Superserious,”

while “Hollow Man” is a dose

of Reckoning-level jangle porn.

Secret highlight: “Houston,” a

mordant travelogue from the

perspective of a refugee fleeing

in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Collapse Into Now

2011

“We’re going out on a high

note,” Mills said of R.E.M.’s

swan-song LP. Collapse Into

Now is a sweet survey of their

vaunted career — bright, bracing

garage rock (“That Someone Is

You”), autumnal acoustic beauty

(“Überlin”), heart-heavy balladry

(“Walk It Back”). It takes balls for

Stipe to sing, “Let’s show the

kids how to do it,” on the raging

“All the Best,” but the music

backs him up, more than living

up to his promise on the darkly

lovely “Blue” to make his pal

Patti Smith proud.

Green

1988

Released on Election Day 1988,

their major-label debut cut

against the Bush-win bummer,

with the optimistic tone of “Get

Up,” the mandolin ballad “You

Are the Everything,” and “Stand,”

in which Stipe tapped his love

of Sixties bubblegum for a hit

ode to human solidarity. Their

second LP with producer Scott

Litt, Green is a little on the

dinky side sonically, and it gets

dour as it progresses, until the

album-ending “Untitled” turns

things around as Mills and Stipe

sing beautifully about music and

love as a guiding light.

Stipe and

the band

onstage in

England,

1985