Every R.E.M. album, ranked

“Man on the Moon,” the Jim Carrey movie about performance artist/comedian Andy Kaufman, is quite good. The soundtrack is not. There are a few R.E.M. songs on it, only one of them good, and that’s “Man on the Moon,” which was on a previous album already. It’s one of those weird soundtracks with stuff from the film in it. Definitely skippable. (But do watch the movie.)

To be honest, live albums aren’t great. Even if a band brings a ton of energy, listening to a show doesn’t feel the same as listening to a properly produced record. Generally speaking, we’d rather actually see a band live and just listen to their music otherwise. This live album was recorded over two days in Dublin in 2005, and it has some good songs on it, of course, but there are better versions of most of them out there.

Let’s just knock out a couple of the live albums back-to-back. This one, weirdly, also comes from a series of concerts in Dublin. But this time the shows were in 2007, and they were also on a five-day residency at the Olympia Theatre. “Live at the Olympia” is a little meatier than “R.E.M. Live,” so it just comes out ahead.

“Around the Sun” is the worst of the traditional studio albums R.E.M. recorded, which seems to be the general consensus given the mediocre reviews. The band, at this point without Berry, felt listless. It made sense that they took four years off before recording their next album, the longest gap they ever had. There’s not much in the way of redeeming songs on this one. It has Q-Tip rapping on one song, which just feels silly.

This was the first post-Berry album, and the band decided to use a lot of drum machines to replace him. “Up” has a little bit more of an electronic music feel to it as a result, and that is not a sound that R.E.M. wears well. “Daysleeper” is a good song, but the rest of the album is not up to snuff.

You’ve probably noticed that the lower portions of this list is populated by the later albums of the band’s discography. That’s probably not surprising. It’s hard for a band to sustain itself for well over a decade. At this point in time, R.E.M. was in their muddled middle period. They weren’t working toward the end of their run, but they were too far from the beginning. The results were just kind of blah.

Rarities and B sides albums are like deleted scenes from a movie at their worst. You realize why they weren’t included in the first place. The Warner Bros. compilation is massive, over 500 minutes of music, and it has some pluses, and of course some minuses. Do you really need three separate versions of “Shiny Happy People?” This is really only for diehard fans who want to really dig into R.E.M.’s catalog.

Yep, another live album. This one actually just came out in October of this year. There are two different versions, an eight-disc collector’s edition that’s 446 minutes of music, and then a “Best Of” that’s 150 minutes. If you like R.E.M., that’s probably the way to go, as there is some good stuff gleaned from the band’s appearances on the BBC on there. You need to love R.E.M. to get the whole collection.

“Accelerate” is the penultimate record for the band, and it's a bit of a rebound after a few middling offerings. Even R.E.M. has admitted that “Around the Sun” wasn’t very good, Peter Buck even told Britain’s Q magazine that Michael Stipe told them that if they made another bad album, it was all over. Instead, they made “Accelerate,” which isn’t peak R.E.M., but it has its moments.

We’ve reached the final of the live albums on this list. The reason this one is the highest is because it does something different. These are, as you probably guessed, “unplugged” versions of R.E.M. songs. You get a lot of acoustic versions of R.E.M. hits and also a few deep cuts.

And with that, it was all over. “Collapse Into Now” is the last of the R.E.M. albums, a decision that seems likely to stick. The band didn’t even tour in support of the album, officially disbanding as a group. They pulled out all the stops, as the album is fairly expansive and features the likes of Eddie Vedder and Patti Smith. It’s not great, and a couple of the songs have pretty awful names, but there are a few good songs, including “Walk It Back.”

A lot of people love “New Adventures in Hi-Fi.” Some consider it one of the band’s best albums. However, it’s probably a little too self-indulgent. It’s R.E.M.’s longest album at a little over an hour long. It could have used some editing, and then it may have finished higher. Quantity and quality do not always go hand in hand. This is a good album, not a great one.

Here we have a collection of songs from the early days of the band. There are also a ton of covers on this album, including a few Velvet Underground/Lou Reed songs. They also included a particularly sloshed version of “King of the Road,” which is amusing. Probably the best thing about the album is that it includes the original single version of “Radio Free Europe,” the first song the band ever released.

If you know your R.E.M., you know the top nine albums on this list are the first nine R.E.M. albums. You also know that “Monster” is the ninth of those albums. Perhaps the band had lost its fastball by this point. However, the issues with “Monster,” to the extent there are issues, is that it feels a little weird. It just feels a little off. Singles like “Bang and Blame” just don’t click. It’s a pretty good album, but not the band’s best by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s been over 30 years since “Green” came out. Where does the time go? This was the band’s first release after leaving I.R.S. for Warner Bros. It’s also the first time the band experimented with the mandolin as part of their sound, which comes into play in a pretty well-known song from a later album. The band wanted to make some major-key rock, and they didn’t want to sound like an “R.E.M. album.” And that’s how a song like “Stand” gets made.

This is R.E.M.’s “Southern Gothic” album, which makes it feel a little weird, but it’s not bad. “Driver 8” is a pretty iconic R.E.M. song, though it’s probably the only one from the album that entered the band’s canon. The album is a bit slower and moodier than its earliest output, but it’s still a strong listen all these years later.

R.E.M. broke out with “Out of Time.” The album went platinum four times over and won three Grammys, including Best Alternative Music Album. It also features “Losing My Religion,” the band’s most famous song. It is truly great. It’s a breakout hit that deserved its success. On the other hand, it also has “Shiny Happy People” on it. So consider that a point against “Out of Time,” which keeps it out of the top five.

By this point, R.E.M. was growing out of being a band loved in Georgia and college towns (including Athens, Georgia, their home base, which is a college town). This is the first really rocking R.E.M. album, though they don’t exactly turn into Metallica. They still had their R.E.M. sound, and Stipe was never going to turn aggro. This is a really good record, including the band’s cover of “Superman” by the Clique, one of those covers that has surpassed the original in people’s minds.

Right out of the gate, R.E.M. had a sound that grabbed you. This was their debut album, and it is so good. Of course, that’s not uncommon for bands. As the old saying goes, you get to spend your whole life preparing for your first album. Back then, 39 years ago, Stipe’s vocals were basically unintelligible, and when you could understand what he was saying, you often didn’t understand what he meant. Still, if you wanted a jangly indie rock record, and who doesn’t, they gave it to you with “Murmur.”

Both “Out of Time” and “Monster” became No. 1 albums, but the record between them, “Automatic for the People,” only reached No. 2. Which is strange, because it’s better than either of those releases. It’s loaded with good songs, including “Everybody Hurts,” “Nightswimming” and “Man on the Moon.” It’s a heavy album emotionally, but it’s a great one.

Pavement loved R.E.M. They even have a song that’s dedicated to the band’s early output. (“Time After Time” was Stephen Malkmus’ least favorite song, in case you were curious.) Well, “Reckoning” is to “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” as “Murmur" is to “Slanted and Enchanted,” to make a direct analogy. “Reckoning” is the sophomore release that sees the band taking things to a whole new level of excellence. “So. Central Rain” and “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” are the famous songs from the album, but “Camera” is, in all honesty, perhaps the best R.E.M. song of them all. Naturally, Pavement covered it.

R.E.M. certainly bid goodbye to I.R.S. on a high note. This is the band at its peak. Stipe, Buck, Mills and Berry were firing on all cylinders. It’s a political and pointed record, but it absolutely rocks. The three singles, “The One I Love,” “Finest Worksong” and the iconic “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” are all classics. There’s not really an off note in the bunch. If you were only going to listen to one R.E.M. album, make it “Document.” After that, you are going to want to hear more.