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There is an argument to make that the end of R.E.M.
came on March 1, 1995, in Lausanne, Switzerland.
It was early on, during the tour behind R.E.M.s latest album, the glammy and heavyMonster.
The follow-up toAutomatic for the Peoplewent No.
1 in the U.S. and several other countries, despite being the bands first non-masterpiece of the 90s.
It should have been a celebration.
Instead, Bill Berry, founding drummer, collapsed and suffered a brain aneurysm while playingMonsters Tongue onstage.
It was also a sign.
Leaving wasnt his initial idea.
They decided to keep going with Berrys blessing.
When MTV asked Stipe in 1997 how R.E.M.
would now sound, he replied, your guess is as good as ours.
More importantly, it sold fewer records than what had come before.
Stipe took to calling his band a three-legged dog, and fans and critics had no reason to disagree.
The distance between everyone was literal, and it showed.
Some were even great.
Writing aboutMurmur,Seth Colter Wallsobserved that R.E.M.
was never about jangly guitars.
Instead, they were about the power of one cohesive ensemble.
Its indies greatest lesson:Your technical abilities mean little in comparison with how you connect to your bandmates.
Your band is your family, and R.E.M.
acted like an actual family.
In that sense, these last albums loosely and unintentionally play out as different stages of real-life grief.
What if we got rid of all electric guitars?
What if we collaborated with Q-Tip?Acceleratesounds as fun as a midlife crisis.
By the time the band releasedCollapse Into Nowin 2011, they finally sounded comfortable as a trio.
Then it was all over.
If you spend enough time with them, these five messy albums make the final years of R.E.M.
more interesting and more rewarding.
This list is presented to flow as one album with the tracks organized, intentionally, out of time.
(Listen to this supercut viaSpotify.)
The first four tracks alone almost justify the idea that this was R.E.M.s comeback.
(If only the rest of the album was as memorable.)
This is not good for post-Berry.
In the words of the comprehensive and encyclopedic R.E.M.
podcastR U Talkin R.E.M.
RE: ME?, this is just good rock-and-roll music.
Supernatural Superserious
In this alternative R.E.M.
supercut world, Supernatural Superserious, also fromAccelerate, would be its first single.
Stipe is disarming as he whispers youve been sad for a while over glowing keys and beehive guitars.
Mine Smell Like Honey
Knowing this would be their last album, R.E.M.
constructedCollapse Into Nowas a loving collage of every past album.
It only took them fourteen years.)
IfUpwas self-conscious,Revealwastoosecure in itself.
And like U2, initial reviews were overwhelmingly positive for a record that sounded more slick than good.
Airportman
The underwhelmingUpopener becomes a necessary instrumental break.
It turns out the Radiohead influence worked both ways.
Uberlin
Maybe more than any other R.E.M.
record,Collapse Into Nowis concerned with location.
Berlin is also important to R.E.M.
To Stipes credit, he got close.
At My Most Beautiful
Someone can write an entire book on the beauty of this song.
For now, we can say this: At My Most Beautiful is impossibly lovely.
(According to David BuckleysR.E.M.
And yes, every song, including the Q-Tip track, is the same tempo.
(They had just put out their massiveIn Time: The Best of R.E.M.
19882003collection and were too comfortable as a global touring force to prove anything new in the studio.)
The Ascent of Man
Because this is R.E.M., you have to end every album on a longing note.
(Berrys best contribution as a songwriter: knowing when to cut songs short.)
can be when their songs are about everything and nothing at the same time.
It seemed that R.E.M.
