A quick post to make you aware of this rundown the members of R.E.M. did for NME. Each member chose their 10 favourite R.E.M. tracks and it makes for interesting reading. Note the (almost) complete absence of IRS-era tracks from Stipe's list? And Bill Berry's inclusion of both Rotary 10 and Voice Of Harold. Can't really tell if he took this seriously or not...
It doesn't look like any song is chosen twice, which makes the glaring omissions even more... glaring. I mean, no Fall On Me? No Radio Free Europe? No At My Most Beautiful? Mind, if you had to choose just 10 R.E.M. songs (a la JC's Imaginary Albums), there's bound to be some controversy...
Here's mine (in no particular order):
World Leader Pretend
Country Feedback
Let Me In
Finest Worksong
Begin The Begin
Fall On Me
Living Well Is The Best Revenge
Life And How To Live It
Turn You Inside Out
At My Most Beautiful
To be fair, ask me next week and half of that list would be different...
Two vids, including a jawdropping rendition of Country Feedback with Neil Young!
Choosing just ten, a near-impossible task.
ReplyDeleteI tried to pick 10 one and found it very difficult. Love that Bill Berry picked Voice Of Harold (which could make my list)
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that much of my top 10 would come from the IRS era! Chronic Town, Murmur, Reckoning... love them.
ReplyDeleteBill's top three were songs he didn't even play on.
ReplyDeleteNeil Young was perfect for that.
ReplyDeleteOnly 4 of my top 10 were in the band members' lists, but 3 of them are in the Robster's.
ReplyDeleteR.E.M. might be my all time favorite band, and there will be... many more albums of theirs getting featured as my massive/ludicrous best 1,000 albums ever project gets into the Top 350 (625+ entries already revealed here! https://popthruster.com/).
ReplyDeleteI have a deep history with "World Leader Pretend." When my first love/college girlfriend and I broke up, I became obsessed with it, particularly the line, "This is my mistake, let me make it good"!
"Fall On Me" is easily a Top 3 R.E.M. song for me, and some days it'll be #1.