We’ve been on something of an R.E.M. kick of late here at Slicing Up Eyeballs HQ, which made it easy to choose the third subject of our new readers poll series that seeks to rank the full recorded output of a given band. After putting the full songlists of The Cure and The Smiths up for votes, we now turn to that most foundational of American college-rock acts.
R.E.M., by our best calculations (and with the help of this exhaustive Wikipedia page), released 282 studio-recorded songs between 1981 (the Hib-Tone release of “Radio Free Europe”) and the band’s break-up in 2011. With your help, we’ll rank those songs, from best to worst, in the coming weeks.
VOTING: Below you’ll find a ballot listing all 282 songs officially released by R.E.M., including all of the Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe originals, plus covers (yes, covers), B-sides, etc. What you won’t find are live recordings (even if, say, it’s a song like “Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance,” released on a live album, but which never saw a studio release), remixes, demos or alternate takes.
You’re welcome to vote for as many as 25 of your favorite songs released by R.E.M.
A few notes on all this:
- We’re somewhat confident that our list of 282 songs is complete, but if there are any missing, there is a write-in option at the bottom of the poll. You can also email info@slicingupeyeballs.com to alert us to any omissions, or if you’ve got any questions about song eligibility beyond the rules described above.
- Yes, we’re including covers this time. After omitting them for The Cure and The Smiths polls, we’ve had a change of heart, for a few reasons. For one, R.E.M. recorded many, many more covers than either of those bands, even nestling them alongside originals on their albums. Plus, there’s all those Christmas singles to ponder. They’re simply a larger part of this band’s oeuvre. And, frankly, we wanted to stem off the barrage of complaints from people who couldn’t find “Superman” on the ballot.
- Just to be absolutely clear, since we’re not including mixes or alternate takes, that means there is — for the sake of this poll — no distinction between the Hib-Tone recording of “Radio Free Europe” and the later re-recording. Certainly, this is a fraught subject, and we recognize there are different camps here. But including them as two separate options would only split the vote for that song.
- While you can vote for up to 25 songs, they all will be weighed equally when the results are tallied. But if you’d like to share your ranked Top 25 lists with the rest of the Slicing Up Eyeballs readers, feel free to drop them in the comments below, and make your case.
DEADLINE: Voting ends 5 p.m. EST Friday, July 21, and results will be posted by the end of the month.
Sound good? Then vote away.
(If you have any difficulty using the webform below, go directly to Polldaddy to vote: poll.fm/5tq7f)
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Vintage Video: R.E.M. tears up pre-‘Murmur’ set in earliest known pro-shoot footage
- MTV promo from 1988: ‘When I’m an old person, I think I’ll still be listening to R.E.M.’
- R.E.M.’s ‘Automatic For the People’ to receive 25th anniversary reissue this fall
- R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe to debut rare solo music as part of Moogfest audiovisual project
Surprisingly difficult when faced with so many to choose from.
Yikes! This is gonna be brutal.
Got ten days to narrow it down to 25 and it will be interesting to see what makes these very difficult cuts for me.
Thanks for doing this one!
This was fun!
HAD to include “Superman.” Gary Zekley played with them at my future alma mater. It counts!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7N3IypQVYg
Classics!
Heaviest on the early days, with a few later gems.
So. Central Rain
Loved this band early on!
What if I don’t want to leave a comment???
Ugh, too many
That was tough. Picked some obvious and personal favourites.
Very hard to do!
Is the hope in including the Fan Club singles that the band will reissue them in a widespread fashion/compilation? If so, “Smart Magnavox. Very smart.”
No comment
My picks
This R.E.M. survey is a good idea. Though it’s sort of like asking which 25 of your 282 children you love the most. I tried not to agonize over it and fill it out quickly. Here’s what I decided:
Belong
Bittersweet Me
Catapult
Cuyahoga
Daysleeper
Electrolite
Falls to Climb
Find the River
Gardening at Night
Get Up
Leave
The Lifting
Losing My Religion
Man on the Moon
Maps and Legends
Me in Honey
The One I Love
Orange Crush
Pop Song ’89
Shiny Happy People
So Fast, So Numb
So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)
Stand
Supernatural Superserious
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
Yes, Belong!
To many to choose.
Like having to choose your favourite child!
Interesting exercise!
Kohoutek, from Fables, please.
Can I have 30?
Made it all the way to ‘S’ before I hit 25. Had to go back and make some tough choices. Going to now make an A-Z playlist of these songs and listen to it for about a month.
I like the older stuff. Sue me.
I forgot how prolific R.E.M. was.
Electrolite <3
Well, I guess my selections are indicative of my age! The first R.E.M. album I bought was “Fables of the Reconstruction” on cassette. Still among my favorites! Unfortunately, I didn’t select anything after “Monster.” Not that “New Adventures in Hi-Fi” was fundamentally flawed. My music tastes had changed dramatically over time. So much that “Automatic For the People” was likely the last R.E.M. album that I played heavily. It will be interesting to see how many of their early songs are represented vs. their more pop leanings later on. Whatever the case, R.E.M. was a great band and an important part of my formative years.
Love everyone!! Everything.
My R.E.M. began with LRP. Not to say I’m opposed to what came before, but that’s where the sound I loved rounded into shape.
Love this track
Fun exercise…. I hope they play again for the fans…
Something about early REM reminds me of early Beatles- there’s a sense of wonder at the music process. Initially they were novice musicians and you can hear that in their music. That, and the twangyness of Pete’s Rickys is completely reminiscent of the moptops in their early years.
Wow- that was tougher than I thought. Noticed my pattern -no songs from this century- most from the 80’s.
Can I just vote for Harborcoat 25 times?
In all seriousness, this is going to be tough. Even with just knocking out the post-Green output, which let’s face it really doesn’t hold a candle to the earlier tracks (with a few minor exceptions maybe) there is still a lot of really tough decisions to make.
Just an excuse to listen to their catalog for the next few days.
I love this songs
Rockville is a tune that comes to mind more than any other for me.
Not easy to limit to 25. Left off perhaps a few better songs for ones that speak to me personally.
Tried to balance between singles and album tracks…always tough! These guys had a ton of great songs.
Great poll! I thought selecting 25 would be easy but I was mistaken. Thanks for holding this. They’re my favorite band ever.
I just made this easy on myself and voted for all of Chronic Town, Murmur, and Reckoning (with the difficult omissions of Camera and Letter Never Sent). The Mitch Easter stuff basically …
Another great poll. Making a list is almost impossible but I’m gonna try though if I made it again tomorrow it would be totally different.
– Fall on me
– We all go back to where we belong
– What’s the frequency, Kenneth
– The flowers of Guatemala
– I believe
– Bittersweet me
– Shaking Through
– So. Central Rain
– The One I love
– Losing my religion
– Wendell Gee
– I’ll take the rain
– Leaving New York
– Begin the begin
– It’s the end of the world…
– Supernatural, superserious
– Talk about the passion
– Pop song 89
– Pretty persuasion
– Bandwagon
– Crazy
– Near Wild Heaven
– Turn u inside-out
– Electrolite
– Find the river
… and these are not even the ones I voted before XD
Early to late 80s were the best.
“Fall on Me” and “Perfect Circle” are my two favorites of all time (but I was still easily able to find 23 more great ones).
Bank.
Quarry.
River.
Swim.
The earlier the better…
REM: The dream Andrés the pop music.
List needs to be Top 50
R.E.M are the Best ever!
That was surprisingly easy! Great band !
More !
Q
One of the best bands of the 80s and 90s.
One of my all time faves
I agree with other commenters that earlier work is better. Some from the 80’s stop me in my tracks when I hear them- crazy memories.
Too many great songs
The Desert Island
1. What’s the Frequency, Kenneth
2. Radio Free Europe
3. It’s the End of the World
4. Half a World
5. Fall On Me
6. Driver 8
7. Man on the Moon
8. So. Central Rain
9. Supernatural Superserious
10. Don’t Go Back to Rockville
11. Imitation of Life
12. Daysleeper
The Hits
13. The One I Love
14. Losing My Religion
15. Stand
16. Everybody Hurts
17. Shiny Happy People
The Deep Cuts
18. Nightswimming
19. Can’t Get There from Here
20. Living Well Is the Best Revenge
21. Hollow Man
22. Electrolite
23. Cuyahoga
24. Radio Song
25. Begin the Begin
Nice poll
My favorite band of all time. Miss them.
Too many to choose from!!
Super hard!! They had a ton of great songs!
Best band ever — so many great songs, so meaningful in so many ways. REM was basically my religion for years.
That said, it will be interesting to see where “Shiny Happy People” lands, whether it’s been re-embraced by the fans or whether it is still basically disowned. By popular exposure it’s probably the second-most popular REM song, and also the single most hated. I know I still can’t listen to it.
Cool survey
Why isn’t “Untitled” from Green on this list?
Oh wait – I see it at the top! I was looking for “Untitled” under “U”. :)
It’s under ’11th Untitled Song’
Huge fan of the site. Have been for years.
great music
Yeah, I really do love a bunch of songs on Dead Letter Office.
I didn’t do an exact count, but that album got more votes than any other. Second most was probably Reckoning.
Agreed. Listened to that one frequently when I was younger. Ages of You and Burning Down made it onto my list. Thought about adding Voice of Harold even though I already did 7 Chinese Brothers, just cause that’s how I roll.
Pretty much every song I picked came from Green or before, but that’s just because that was such a great period. REM is one of the few bands that (starting with Murmur) had the classic “run” of four or more great albums in succession — Stones (68-73), Zeppelin (I-Houses of the Holy), Clash (debut to Sandinista). Can’t really think of anyone else – maybe Bowie starting with Hunky Dory (but PinUps doesn’t really count as a track for track classic, nor does Diamond Dogs). In any event, that is some pretty good company to be with.
Can anybody think of any other bands that belong???
Pixies/Frank Black (’89-’94). Most would throw in “Surfer Rosa” too.
Maybe. Trompe le Monde doesn’t do it for me. So, for me, that would break the streak. However, many of my friends would disagree with that.
Er…The Beatles, perhaps.
I hate to be a contrarian, but I have to disagree on the Beatles. Yes, yes, I understand that they are one of the greatest bands of all time and certainly the most influential. Also, Revolver is in my top 10. But what four album run did they have? I would think most people would place Rubber Soul as the the beginning, but the fourth album in that series is Magical Mystery Thour, which has some great (and i mean genre defining great) songs, but a few misses as well. I know its sacrilege, but I think the same of Sgt. Peppers.
Just an opinion.
The first four X albums are all certainly well loved, critically and amongst fans. Some would say Depeche 86-93, although I tend to think SFD is somewhat overrated beyond the singles. New Order were unstoppable for three albums 84-86, but adding a fourth true classic at either end is iffy.
The thing about REM is, I actually think they did it twice. Forget the early records: If their career had started with Automatic for the People, run through Monster and New Adventures, and ended after Up, people would still think they were one of the most interesting bands to come along in pretty much ever — the ’90s were way better for them creatively than they ever get credit for.
Totally agree on X. And the first two are perfect. Can’t agree on Depeche Mode, but people love them. And I think you comment on New Order is spot on (although I guess you could argue that the last Joy Division album began a run). One band I forgot — and I can’t believe I forgot them — was the Smiths. Pretty had to argue against them, unless you simply don’t like Morrisey’s voice. And, if so, that is tough to get past.
Spot on statement
I’d argue that R.E.M.’s 4 album run was fables through green.
All great albums, and I think Green is underrated. It’s a classic in my opinion. But Murmur is a masterpiece. It pretty much invented indie/college rock. And, the songs are amazing. Just listen to Shaking Through and then you realize that it wasn’t even a single. That says a lot.
Beastie Boys: Licensed to Ill, Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head, Ill Communication and Hello Nasty… (I’ll throw in a 5th – To the Five Buroughs – to trump all comers…) just saying…
That’s F–n hilarious. I was just thinking that I should have put them in. Licenced to Ill until Ill Comminucation (with Paul’s being the centerpiece).
First four Ramones albums?
Beat me to it…but left out “It’s Alive”. :)
The first four Ramones LPs plus “It’s Alive” put them firmly in this group.
The Replacements-Let It Be to Don’t Tell A Soul. Yeah the 4th is maybe just a little too weak but it’s more than made up for by three absolute killers.
Sandinista was a great album? Yikes. The Clash are one of my top 5 bands for sure, but that album is horrible.
blasphemy!!!!!!
Four consecutive classic albums, that’s a tough task. And you’re a strict judge, rejecting The Beatles .. personally, I wouldn’t include The Smiths, Meat Is Murder just isn’t as dear to me as the other three. Heads up for mentioning X and the Beasties!
My favourite four album runs would be:
1. Talking Heads, 77 to Remain In Light
2. Kraftwerk, Autobahn to Man Machine
3. Joni Mitchell, Ladies Of The Canyon to Court And Spark
4. Velvet Underground, & Nico to Loaded
5. Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run to Nebraska
(a tough narrowing down like the R.E.M. poll. Had to leave out The Go-Betweens, Roxy Music and Steely Dan)
Anyone for XTC? I think anything after Drums and Wires..
This was really hard work! It would be easier to choose the top 50.
This was fun. Ended up picking more WB era than IRS, which surprised me.
This was really fun! In alphabetical order –
At My Most Beautiful
Be Mine
Cuyahoga
Drive
E-bow the Letter
Electrolite
Find the River
Half a World Away
Harborcoat
Laughing
Let Me In
Letter Never Sent
Near Wild Heaven
The One I Love
Orange Crush
Perfect Circle
So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)
Supernatural Superserious
Sweetness Follows
Talk About the Passion
Time After Time
Try Not to Breathe
Welcome to the Occupation
Wolves, Lower
You’re in the Air
No comment needed
wow- So “Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” is one of my all time favorite (REM or otherwise-); it is on my self proclaimed Soundtrack of My Life… Along with “Nightswimming”…
this was a fun one- To go thru and nail down 25.
though REM got a little more hit or miss toward the end- I still had “Uberlin” on my list.
Have a feeling the staples Fall On Me, End of the World as we know it and Losing My Religion will dominate-; heck they are all on my list and are rock solid choices.
REM were (and still are) so ahead of their time in so many ways; yet they were right where they were supposed to be; In my life making me think and making me better
Hard to choose!
Shaking Through #1
agreed. With I am Superman a close second.
Love them all!
I got my list and making the cuts to get it down to 25 is getting hard and harder each cutting round.
Glad I’ve got some time on this.
Time after time was my least favorite song ;)
Nice Pavement quote from a obscure song about REM there.
“Flasback, 1983,/
Chronic Town was the 1st EP”.
Tough choices!
Joy Division next, please!
Not enough to do a 25 song choice, I’m afraid.
There are so many here I have never even heard. I will be searching for these tonight on youtube. Life’s Rich Pageant was the second cassette I ever bought. The first was Stop Making Sense. Let’s do a Talking Heads list next, please!
Nice
I made a 3 disc “best of” for myself using every album so all I needed to do was whittle that down some. Still tough to do.
Added cover of “Witchita Lineman”; didn’t see it on the list. Post Bill Berry, very little makes the cut, though Accelerte and Collpase Into Now are excellent albums, start to finish. Rieflin never looked comfortable, and simply wasn’t as good as BB.
I wanted to vote for “Wichita Lineman” as well, but it doesn’t qualify because I don’t think they ever released a studio version of it. (I’m assuming you’re talking about the live version on the “Bittersweet Me” single.)
Well as for Depeche Mode, I agree that SoFaD is over rated (except the excellent In Your Room), but I’d start their run at Some Great Reward.
I could think of several other bands that have had great strings of albums, (Dark Side of the Moon through The Wall, Boy through War…) all very subjective of course.
That being said, let’s do a DM poll!
Edit my U2 list to end with Unforgettable Fire, oops!
But is October really a classic album? It has Gloria and a few others, but I’d say it falls short. People like to slag off the Joshua Tree, but it is a great album. True, we are all probably sick to death of many of the songs (almost the entire first side), but that’s just because they were so good that radio and MTV could not stop playing them.
October is a good album, maybe even a very good album. But it is not a great one.
You are absolutely right about Joshua Tree. It is indeed a great album that some like to dismiss because it was so huge. Time has been very good to it regardless of the overexposure of so many songs.
Would love to see a poll on U2 songs here.
lol @Chad ;)
–Desert Island Songs–
Feeling Gravity’s Pull
Begin the Begin
You Are the Everything
World Leader Pretend
Sweetness Follows
Electrolite
–The “Hits”–
Radio Free Europe
Talk About the Passion
So. Central Rain
Fall On Me
–Deep Cuts–
Wolves, Lower
West of the Fields
7 Chinese Bros.
Camera
Life & How To Live It
Ages of You
Cuyahoga
I Believe
King of Birds
I Remember California
Fretless
Find the River
Photograph
Parakeet
–Covers–
Wall of Death
For the record, I’m ashamed to be omitting some of the usual favorites (Driver 8, Can’t Get There From Here, etc.); everything from Document side 1; all of Monster; the three Velvet Underground covers; and some fine latter-day tracks like Until the Day Is Done, All the Way to Reno, and Beat a Drum.
I’m not ashamed to omit everything from Out of Time, which mostly sucks.
All that said, I would like to think that if someone listened to this list straight through as a playlist, they would understand what all the fuss was about.
Long live REM.
Bite your tongue for liking latter REM and saying Out of Time sucks. Some of the non-singles on there are amazing. The weakest links you can point at are the songs you might have tired of from overhearing, Radio Song, Losing My Religion, and Shiny Happy People. I know Near Wild Heaven was technically a single, but it’s a classic slice of pop masterpiece from them. Beach Boys REM at it’s best. And then juxtapose that with Low and Belong… and Half a World Away? Me in Honey is also amazeballs. And Millsy shines on Texarkana. I love him on lead vocals. I can’t fathom loving later stuff but disliking that album.
Every track from Life’s Rich Pageant, because it’s perfect.
Pretty on point there. I Believe, being my favorite. I’d leave out Flowers, but everything wise made my list too.
This was tough, needed top 50
Great band…they made excellent albums. Would love to see them reform.
Likewise. And as time goes on I want it more and more. We can hope, I guess/
That was tough! I had to whittle down from a rough draft of 42!
Kohoutek is one of the best love songs ever written. “Courage built a bridge, Jealous tore it down”
I Love all R.E.M songs.
Just dont like the Covers.
And only Two songs i dont like is:
Crush with eyeliner
&
S.Happy People.
If I had but one song left to listen to before I expire it would be “Nightswimming”.
OMG YAAAAAAAASSSSS I’m on a Nightswimming kick. Not even listening to it all the time, just in my head.
Find The River for me…
Rem showed me from early on that music was religion. All hail God Stipe
Laughing
Gravity’s Pull
Country Feedback
These Days
Me in Honey
Greatest college band ever. Seen 9 times and every show stood out. Nothing has come close since my early days at Fresno St. R.E.M. Got me through college
It’s funny because the early albums are all classics and definitely better as a whole. But when choosing individual moments for this list I found myself choosing a lot of songs from the 90s and 2000s
When R.E.M. disbanded, Sound Opinions did a nice retrospective of their recording career. It’s episode #306, if anyone is interested.
I read another reviewer somewhere that referred to Bill Berry as the “secret weapon” of R.E.M., with tempos, vocals and a keen song editing skill that kept focus. Besides Superserious I couldn’t find a cut after he left that matches the collaborative genius of the albums with him. REM (with a counterpoint of U2) really did define my high school era and continue to influence me today; the melodic interplay and overlaying vocals with often mystifying lyrics were some of the best in music, from the era when the band lived in the same town, workshopped the songs together, aspired to finding at least a touch of some unconventional alchemy from the Athens art scene they rose from… that era was remarkable. Mills is my favorite multitalented bassist ever too. Thank you R.E.M.!
Sitting still. Oh wait, you’re supposed to check boxes.
SITTING STILL
Damn, this was tough – to many good songs to choose from! Probably voted for too many of the “popular” tunes, but, having grown up through the 80s with the band, certain songs bring back certain memories…and I can’t ignore that!
And, of course, I meant “too many good songs…” Sorry for the grammar faux pas, kids! haha
Thanks for including “Dark Globe.” It’s not their best release, but playing that flexidisc is one of my favorite music memories of the time period.
Same.
Awesome, I figured I wasn’t the only one :)
Even though Superman, Femme Fatale, There She Goes Again ate some of my REM faves, I just can’t vote for cover songs. Just didn’t feel right. Anyways, I Believe had better make the final list or there are some serious flaws in voting here, peeps.
Ranking is silly and definitive statements on matter of taste are exercises in triviality. This is, however, a list of the songs I like most.
“Begin the Begin”
“Catapult”
“Country Feedback”
“Dark Globe”
“Drive”
“Driver 8”
“E-Bow the Letter”
“Electrolite”
“Fall On Me”
“Fireplace”
“How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us”
“I Remember California”
“I Took Your Name”
“It Happened Today”
“Lightnin’ Hopkins”
“Living Well Is the Best Revenge”
“Low”
“Oddfellows Local 151”
“Oh My Heart”
“Pretty Persuasion”
“Strange”
“Swan Swan H”
“We Walk”
“Wendell Gee”
“You Are the Everything”
Gardening at Night and Wolves, lower are probably my all time favourites… quickly followed by most of Out of Time and in particular Me in Honey… absolutely love that track but everything Kate Pierson sings on that record is absolute gold. Even shiny happy people.. which I adore xx
Had a hard time with this. For example – Seven Chinese Brothers or Voice of Harold?
Am I maybe the only person that put on the gripping narrative of “Belong”? Nope, found one other like-minded soul who loves that track as much as I.
By Album –
I think I actually put on every track on Chronic Town save “Stumble” –
Murmur – Radio Free Europe, Sitting Still, and Perfect Circle.
Reckoning – 7 Chinese Brothers, So Central Rain, and Pretty Persuasion
Fables – Driver 8 and Life and How to Live it.
Life’s Rich Pageant – These Days, Cuyahoga, I Believe
Dead Letter Office – Ages of You, Burning Down
Document – Welcome to The Occupation, Disturbance at the Heron House (The ongoing theme is trying to highlight mostly the non-hits)
Green – You Are The Everything, World Leader Pretend
Out of Time – Belong, Half a World Away
Automatic For the People – Nightswimming, Find The River
This was way harder than I thought it was going to be. My first list had about 45 songs. Heavy on the the the Bill Berry era though….
One of the best runs of great albums
Out of the 25 I voted for, I think my Top 5 would be…’Find The River, Nightswimming, Fretless, Losing My Religion, and Everbody Hurts.
I had not found “The one I love” and I ended up putting it in “others”, but I deleted it, even though I computed it as a choice? Anyway … okay, it was fun and it’s a band that I love!
This is the best band I could hear, among the many I love, like The Smiths or Grant Lee Buffalo, for example, I enjoyed taking part in the election.
Talk about the Passion
So central rain (I´m sorry
The one I love
Orange crush
Near wild heaven
Me in honey
Maps and legends
Low
It´s the end of the world..
Half a world away
Get up
Good Advices
Gardening at night
The flowers of Guatemala
Fall on me
Endgame
Drive 8
Cuyahoga
Country Feedback
Carnival of sorts (Box cars)
Belong
Begin the begin
7 chinese bro.
1.000,000
Wolfes lower
1. It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
2. I Took Your Name
3. So Central Rain
4. These Days
5. I’ll Take The Rain
6. Pretty Persuasion
7. Living Well Is The Best Revenge
8. Let Me In
9. Bad Day
10. Sitting Still
11. Find The River
12. At My Most Beautiful
13. Crush With Eyeliner
14. Binky The Doormat
15. Low Desert
16. Begin The Begin
17. The Outsider
18. Ignoreland
19. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
20. Near Wild Heaven
21. Country Feedback
22. Electrolite
23. Man On The Moon
24. Finest Worksong
25. Disturbance At The Heron House
no particular order and if asked again list would change
Just seems impossible to imagine a list, as difficult as it is to pare down to 25, without Perfect Circle on it.