Of course I already had all the album tracks, and if I wanted to listen to an R.E.M. best of, I'd make my own, including IRS stuff, dawg! But I didn't have "The Great Beyond" or "Bad Day", and I wanted to hear "Animal" and "All the Right Friends" (and, in a bonus, Peter Buck's liner notes on the individual songs are interesting), so here we are.
Still, nearly all of the songs on this cd are pretty much essential (though I could've done without the Reveal cuts, "All the Way to Reno" and "Imitation of Life"), and hearing them back to back has reminded me of why I like R.E.M. as much as I do, and really hammered home the band's greatness. It's also got me wondering how my own 'best of' would look, including music from the whole of their career, at least at the moment...there are 18 songs on In Time, so that'll be the limit; 'favourites' not 'best', all due indulgence of sentiment and personal meaning, and no attempt to represent the whole of the band's recorded output, listed in tracklist order.
1. Drive (Automatic for the People)
2. Losing My Religion (Out of Time)
3. The One I Love (Document)
4. What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (Monster)
5. Daysleeper (Up)
6. E-Bow The Letter (New Adventures In Hi-Fi)
7. Everybody Hurts (Automatic for the People)
8. so. Central Rain (Reckoning)
9. Fall On Me (Life's Rich Pageant)
10. Orange Crush (Green)
11. At My Most Beautiful (Up)
12. Be Mine (New Adventures In Hi-Fi)
13. Shaking Through (Murmur)
14. Pretty Persuasion (Reckoning)
15. Finest Worksong (Document)
16. Wendell Gee (Fables of the Reconstruction)
17. I've Been High (Reveal)
18. Electrolite (New Adventures In Hi-Fi)
