For as long as I can remember, I’ve always liked R.E.M. The rollercoaster of a track that is It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) was almost certainly the introduction for me, and many more began to slowly filter through like the rather obvious Losing My Religion and Man on the Moon.

It was only really a few years ago that I properly decided to delve outside of the singles, and only as recently as 2017 that I’d finally listened to all of their records. And then 2018 became the overload, even listening to an R.E.M. podcast for my sins. So it became this, a blog to unload all my thoughts and opinions on the band’s entire discography, as nobody I know cares enough to listen to me. 15 albums and over 300 songs, in most likely a slow, arbitrary order.

The thing I find so endearing about the band was their ability to confound the musical landscape in the 80s and adapt to adversity in the 90s, and managing to end on a high in the 21st century. Some of their work from their IRS era was inimitable, and it’s rare that it takes seven albums for a band to become the biggest on the planet. Contrary to popular opinion, I also think that some of R.E.M.’s most intimate and creative work is featured on the post-Bill Berry albums. It’s quite neat that R.E.M.’s career can be neatly chopped up into three equal(ish) segments: the IRS era (1980-1987, Murmur – Document), the global domination era (1988-1997, Green – New Adventures in Hi-Fi), and the post-Berry era (1998-2011, Up – Collapse Into Now). Each has five albums apiece, and you can sense some overriding themes amongst them all.

The entries here will be on each R.E.M. song I can find, with my facts and thoughts on display. Any data from the songs such as releases, year and chart position will also be included when possible, along with the ranking from this epic Slicing Up Eyeballs poll from 2017.

I also (rarely) write at Neon Loneliness – a similar journey through the Manic Street Preachers’ discography – and musicisalright – a scatterbrain musical ramble.