R.E.M. - The IRS years

nlgbbbblth

Pick your favourite record.

Chronic Town is included because it sold for album prices and featured in the album charts.

Yet another compilation due in a few weeks.

Another IRS best of to follow Eponymous (1988) and The Very Best Of R.E.M. (1991) and Singles Collected (1994)

tracklist

Two versions will be available, one with only the first disc, the second with a bonus disc. Track lists for both below

Begin The Begin
Radio Free Europe
Pretty Persuasion
Talk About The Passion
(Don't Go Back To) Rockville
Sitting Still
Gardening At Night
7 Chinese Bros.
So Central Rain (I'm Sorry)
Driver 8
Can't Get There From Here
Finest Worksong
Feeling Gravity's Pull
I Believe
Life And How To Live It
Cuyahoga
The One I Love
Welcome To The Occupation
Fall On Me
Perfect Circle
It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Bonus CD:
Pilgrimage (Mike's Pick)
These Days (Bill's Pick)
Gardening at Night (Slower Electric Demo) (Previously Unreleased)
Radio Free Europe (Hib-tone Version)
Sitting Still (Hib-tone Version)
Life and How to Live It (Live) (Previously Unreleased)
Ages of You (Live At The Paradise, Boston 7/13/83) (Previously Unreleased)
We Walk (Live At The Paradise, Boston 7/13/83) (Previously Unreleased)
1,000,000 (Live At The Paradise, Boston 7/13/83) (Previously Unreleased)
Finest Worksong (Other Mix)
Hyena (Demo) (Previously Unreleased)
Theme from Two Steps Onward (Previously Unreleased)
Superman
All the Right Friends (Previously Unreleased, Later Version Released On Official Soundtrack To Vanilla Sky)
Mystery to Me (Demo)
Just A Touch (Live In-studio Version) (Previously Unreleased)
Bad Day (Session Outtake) (Previously Unreleased)
King of Birds (Last Song Cut)
Swan Swan H (Live Acoustic From Athens, GA-Inside Out)
Disturbance At The Heron House (Peter's Pick)
Time After Time (Ann Elise) (Michael's Pick)

CollectingVinyl

Document

I voted for Lifes Rich Pageant. Begin the Begin, These Days, Fall on me, Cuyahoga, Flowers of Guatemala,etc. Quality album.

nlgbbbblth

Life's Rich Pageant

ranking

1 Fables Of The Reconstruction
2 Life's Rich Pageant
3 Reckoning
4 Document
5 Murmur
6 Chronic Town

I love fables, pageant, and document...
document or fables would be at the top for me, then maybe chronic town (though the live version of gardening at night on the re-released version of Murmur is the best ever) with reckoning a little lower down (despite that wonderfully funny version of Wind Out )

Amazotheamazing

Reckoning

Not a huge REM fan but Murmur is a really great debut album

loyatemu

Reckoning

excluding chronic town because its too short to rate against the others, here's my ranking:

1. Murmur
2. Reckoning
3. Fables
4. Pageant
5. Document

bit of a pattern there - though I don't think theres much between Reckoning, Fables and Pageant and none of the first 4 records has a really bad track on it. Document loses points because I can't listen to "The One I love" or "Its the end of the world" anymore, and also "Fireplace", "Oddfellows" and "Lightnin Hopkins" are all pretty weak.

Lunar Junkie

Reckoning

loyatemu wrote:

excluding chronic town because its too short to rate against the others, here's my ranking:

1. Murmur
2. Reckoning
3. Fables
4. Pageant
5. Document

I'd have the same list, except I'd swap Fables and Life's Rich Pageant - Fables starts out great but a lot of the stuff on it seems half-written to me. Murmur and Reckoning should probably be joint 1st, Murmur just shades it maybe.

oxegen06

picked document but love them all.....!

cashback

Reckoning

I picked Murmur on the poll but now I'm thinking maybe Life's Rich Pageant.
So many great songs on the album; Begin The Begin, Fall On Me, Cuyahoga, Just a Touch, What If We Give It Away. I love the banjo intro on I Believe.

Then again Murmur is brilliant also. Perfect Circle is one of my favourite REM songs as is Pilgrimage. We Walk is such a good tune.
Never really got into Document for some reason. I think its the last three songs that put me off. Has some classic REM tracks on it though.