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The ones we love: all 16 of REM’s albums – ranked!
As their album Fables of the Reconstruction turns 40, we assess REM’s hugely varied discography, from mysterious masterpieces to commercial failures
Their debut mini-album offers REM at their rawest: despite the experimentation that apparently took place – producer Mitch Easter deployed tape loops and recorded Stipe’s vocals outdoors – it sounded like a band playing live. New Adventures in Hi-Fi is filled with weary disillusion – “The fame thing, I don’t get it,” sings Stipe, who had just signed one of the biggest record deals in history – but also with raggedly wonderful songs: the closing Electrolite is a career high. It’s packed with fantastic songs, dark in tone (The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite and Man on the Moon offer rare glimpses of light) and unexpected in its influences: opener Drive was inspired by David Essex’s Rock On.
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