The Official Unofficial REM Album Rankings

My family takes a beach vacation starting in early July, which means I have to pick music for my Dad and I to listen to on the way there. Last year, we listened through the first third of the R.E.M. discography. We didn’t quite hit their prime (in my opinion, at least) so I’m excited to continue that journey. It got me thinking about what I’m most excited for, though, which made me wonder if I have a favorite.

When in doubt, make a blog post about it! Enjoy. Also, I’m only gonna rank through Reveal because almost all of the late material is a full step below the rest. I’m focusing more on what I appreciate the most, rather than critical acclaim or general consensus. 

#12: Up

If I could omit Up, I would. I won’t waste much time here, but Daysleeper, At My Most Beautiful, and Walk Unafraid are quite literally the only three enjoyable tracks on Up, perhaps a product of Berry leaving the band before this album was released but more likely the result of over experimentation and a departure from earlier trends that worked. R.E.M. loved making new sounds, so it makes sense that they would fail eventually.

Best song: At My Most Beautiful (personal favorite: At My Most Beautiful)

#11: Fables Of The Reconstruction

The first true experimentation that R.E.M. ever did; the first of many. As such, they were still working out the kinks. Some people really love this album, but I’ve never really enjoyed the obscure vibe throughout Fables; it almost feels like there should be something deeper here, and there really isn’t. None of it is bad, though, just uninteresting. Not many hits to note here. Pretty solid album to be this far down the list. And no, Driver 8 is not good enough to give this album any more credit than it’s due despite its overwhelming popularity. 

Best song: Feeling Gravity’s Pull (also my favorite (come at me, Driver 8 lovers)).

#10: Document

The next section of this list is gonna be a bunch of really hot takes, but I stand by them. Document gets thrown around as R.E.M.’s best album. An assessment that is objectively wrong. Document lacks any changes in the overall sound throughout the entire album. Every song sounds just the same, and they’re all equally simple. I would’ve expected them to find some more interesting ideas by this point in their career, but alas, they’re still pumping out fun albeit unremarkable rockers with completely indecipherable lyrics. Finest Worksong and The One I Love are good; the latter is one of R.E.M.’s biggest hits, which I will never understand. Another big hit: It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), which sounds nothing like any other R.E.M. song. It’s a novelty, a list of more indecipherable lyrics and a boring, fast-paced sound that stands out on the album, even if just because it’s slightly different. This is the most mainstream album, which isn’t a compliment in this situation.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. It’s a good album, sure. Plenty of decent tracks and a more listenable overall sound than the three previous albums. Nothing to get excited about, though. 

Best song: Finest Worksong (favorite song: Finest Worksong)

#9: Green

Document is like diet Green. Most people think it’s the other way around, but I see Document as the more refined, mainstream, pop-radio focused album, which inevitably makes it more watered-down. Still, similar criticisms here. Most of the songs on Green have more character, and they vary their sound far more. The more I listen, the larger the gap between the two. 

Best song: Orange Crush (personal favorite: Pop Song 89)

#8: Reveal

I just listened to this one the other day, so I had to resist my recency bias a bit. I don’t think I did a very good job, considering Reveal landed above two albums that many consider to be among R.E.M.’s very best. Reveal is almost hazy in nature, very high-emotion and experimental. It’s difficult to compare to the rest of the albums on this list, but it’s a bit less classic. It’s also harder to listen to in some spots where Michael Stipe gets a bit too bizarre in his lyricism. Still, no real complaints here. I doubt you’ll ever see Reveal ranked this high by anyone else. 

Best song: I’ll Take The Rain (personal favorite: Saturn Return)

#7: New Adventures In Hi-Fi

I actually had to completely relisten to this album to appreciate it, but now I really, really like it, which makes my life a lot harder. I’ll knock it a little for super bizarre lyrics that don’t really mean anything, but the sound is just so, so interesting. They vary it way more than they do in their early stuff. I think this might be better. 

E-Bow, Undertow, Electrolite, How The West…, Be Mine, etc. New Adventures is much deeper than I gave it credit for, boasting an impressive selection of listenable, unique tracks without serious flaws. Generally, this album is labeled as one of R.E.M.’s very best or very worst albums. I fall right in the middle. 

Best song: E-Bow The Letter (personal favorite: E-Bow)

#6: Monster

This is where things get really, really difficult for me. I love Monster as an album, as an experiment. I love listening to it, and I love how bizarre it is compared to the rest of R.E.M.’s efforts. Still, I have to acknowledge here that it is not the complete album that the next five albums are. There are misses on the hard-rock, super electronic album that you won’t find on the others, like Let Me In and Tongue. There are also great songs like Crush With Eyeliner, I Took Your Name, and King Of Comedy, among many others. No shortage of hits here. Generally speaking, though, I would listen to this album straight through way less often than I would listen to the rest of this list. 

Best song: What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? (personal favorite: King Of Comedy, forever unappreciated).

#5: Murmur

The last five albums are, as far as I’m concerned, perfect. Differences are basically just personal preference at this point. Most people would probably switch this entry with Reckoning, but I have some personal love for Reckoning. No disrespect to Murmur, which is maybe one of the greatest first albums in the history of music, period. Stipe himself has said that the lyrics mean nothing on their first two records, which is good because they’re basically impossible to hear. That almost makes it all the more impressive that the songs are so fantastic. The last four tracks of this album are, in my opinion, a pretty dead stretch. The rest is great. 

Best song: Talk About The Passion (personal favorite: Laughing)

#4: Life’s Rich Pageant

This is the album my Dad would probably put at #1, and the one that I listened to first. It’s pretty fantastic from top to bottom, but it suffers sometimes from listener fatigue. The sound just doesn’t change very much, it stays fast-paced for nearly the entire time, and it’s supposed to be full of protest undertones (and overtones), but they’re really hard to pick out sometimes. It feels a bit kitschy at times, but it succeeds the vast majority of the time at producing really strong tracks and a fun, impressive sound. The only miss on this album, Swan Swan Hummingbird, isn’t even that terrible. I hate it, but objectively it’s not atrocious. 

It’s just so good when it’s good, though. Cuyahoga, I Believe, These Days, Fall On Me. The album is supremely listenable, probably more listenable at any time than any other album on this list. 

Best song: Cuyahoga (personal favorite: I Believe)

#3: Reckoning

I had a serious love affair with this album for a second. I got tired of it eventually, but I still come back to it quite often. The reason it gets the nod over Pageant is the charm of it, the jangly sound that R.E.M. begins to lose after their first two records. It’s their natural evolution to find harder, more compelling sounds, but it still saddens me a little when I think about just how jangly they could’ve been if they’d continued along that path. I’m not complaining, though, considering what it evolved into later on. 

Regardless, Reckoning holds its own against any of their best work. Although the sound is certainly similar throughout the album, the storytelling and lyricism makes each song feel unique anyway. Yes, Stipe said the lyrics were basically meaningless, but I still love them. If I made this list a year from now, Reckoning probably wouldn’t be up here, but it’s deserving for now.

Best song: Harborcoat (personal favorite: Letter Never Sent)

#2: Out Of Time

Out Of Time wasn’t even top 5 for me the first time I heard it. Songs like Radio Song and Belong were just weird gimmicks that I didn’t really enjoy. Shiny Happy People was nothing more than a childhood memory and a mediocre song.

And then it just got better and better. I guess I learned to enjoy this album, but I also believe it’s a masterpiece from top to bottom. Obviously Losing My Religion is a classic, but songs like Half A World Away, Me In Honey, and Near Wild Heaven all have such a specific vibe attached to them, an upbeat positivity mixed with melancholy that seems so difficult to capture anywhere else. Then there are darker, brooding songs like Low and Country Feedback, of which the latter is probably one of Stipe’s greatest vocal performances. It’s a complete album, more perfect than everything below it without losing any of the charm that makes R.E.M. who they are. 

Best song: Losing My Religion (basic, I know, but it probably is). (personal favorite: Half A World Away)

#1: Automatic For The People

This was a wildly hard decision, but the highs on Automatic are so consistent that it would almost be unfair not to put it here. Every “great” song on this album is not just great, but also one of their very best. There are several songs on Automatic that I never listen to, but the rest of them never get skipped. At the end of the day, which album has the better songs? I think the average on Automatic is just a bit better than Out Of Time, even if the latter is more consistent. Really, it could go either way. 

If you’re gonna start somewhere, I think you should start with Automatic. 

Best song: (ugh, that’s really difficult) Find The River (personal favorite: Try Not To Breathe)