R.E.M. – In Time: The Best Of R.E.M. 1988-2003

I first heard of R.E.M. when I heard “Stand” on the car radio during a snow day in eighth grade. When Out Of Time rolled around during my sophomore year in high school, the band became my favorite, and it hasn’t relinquished the title since. Many of their songs serve as the anchor points through which I can recall my life and how I lived it when I originally heard them. It’s no coincidence that this Best Of collection that covers the group’s time with Warner Bros. also parallels my awareness of their music – without the major-label push that got “Stand” and “Losing My Religion” on Top 40 radio, there’s no way this music would ever have reached my sheltered ears. I can only thank the heavens that it did.

This collection is not quite a greatest hits package, since “Shiny Happy People” isn’t included and few, if any, of the included post-Monster songs qualify as hits. It’s not quite a greatest-songs collection, either, since it limits itself to singles, a couple of soundtrack cuts, and two new songs. It is a solid, although not perfect, retrospective of the band’s last fifteen years.

The album many consider to be the band’s best, Automatic For The People, gets the lion’s share, with four out of the eighteen tracks. “Man On The Moon” and “Everybody Hurts” are included, of course, as are “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” and “Nightswimming”. The last of those is a bit of a surprise to me, since even in the summer of R.E.M. that song didn’t seem to get much airplay. But I’m grateful it’s there, since “Nightswimming” is probably my favorite song. Mike Mills’s piano is beautiful, the string arrangements are terrific, and Michael Stipe’s lyrics and delivery so perfectly capture a feeling of longing for the past that as soon as I heard it I just knew I’d knew I’d be listening to it a decade later.

Out Of Time, the band’s breakthrough, is represented only by the obvious “Losing My Religion”. I would have loved to see “Radio Song” on this disc, but I guess the band figured if “Shiny Happy People” wasn’t going to be there, nothing else from Out Of Time would. I can understand the sentiment, and “Shiny Happy People” was never one of my favorites. But the result is that a very important album feels under-represented. The only other album that doesn’t contribute two songs to the disc is Monster, which adds “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?” Since Monster, despite its popularity at the time, is considered by many to be something of the odd bird in the R.E.M. discography, I can certainly see the sense of that decision.

I think that New Adventures In Hi-Fi, the last album Bill Berry contributed to, is on a par with Automatic, but many of its stronger songs never caught on as singles. While “E-Bow The Letter” has grown on me in the years since, I still think it was poorly chosen as the album’s first single, and may have contributed to the album’s somewhat-disappointing performance. “Electrolite” is another track with a solid Mills piano line, more fun and up-tempo than “Nightswimming” but still a fine song.

The post-Berry selections are rather interesting. Up and Reveal both contribute two singles, and they’re good songs that nonetheless reflect the band trying to find its way as a trio. My favorite song on the disc from this era is “The Great Beyond”, the single from the soundtrack to Man On The Moon. It combines the electronica-tinged moodiness of Up and Reveal with a solid song structure and energetic lyrics from Stipe. The band also reaches into the past for “All The Right Friends” (from the Vanilla Sky soundtrack) and the current single “Bad Day”, older songs that the band completed and re-recorded in the last few years. They certainly have a more ‘traditional’ R.E.M. sound, and I enjoy listening to them. Part of me wonders if the mining of the past isn’t part of the post-Berry learning process, as Mills, Stipe and Peter Buck reclaim and reinterpret some of their older material. The other new song, “Animal”, is fairly forgettable, but doesn’t detract from the collection.

In Time is also available as a 2-disc special edition. In addition to a liner notes booklet written by Buck, the second disc contains demos, live performances, and additional soundtrack cuts, such as “Fretless” from Until the End of the World, “It’s a Free World Baby” from Coneheads and Friends, and an alternate version of “Leave” from A Life Less Ordinary that I personally don’t think holds a candle to the original from New Adventures. The acoustic version of “The One I Love” is damned good, however. As for William S. Burroughs delivering a spoken-word rendition of “Star Me Kitten”…that one, you gotta hear to believe. I highly recommend both versions.

Disc one
1. Man on the Moon (5:14)
2. The Great Beyond (5:07)
3. Bad Day (4:07)
4. What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? (4:01)
5. All the Way to Reno (4:45)
6. Losing My Religion (4:29)
7. E-Bow the Letter (5:26)
8. Orange Crush (3:52)
9. Imitation of Life (3:58)
10. Daysleeper (3:40)
11. Animal (4:02)
12. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite (4:08)
13. Stand (3:12)
14. Electrolite (4:07)
15. All the Right Friends (2:48)
16. Everybody Hurts (5:18)
17. At My Most Beautiful (3:36)
18. Nightswimming (4:18)

Disc two (special edition only)
1. Pop Song 89 (Acoustic) (2:58)
2. Turn You Inside-Out (Live) (4:18)
3. Fretless (4:51)
4. Chance (Dub) (2:34)
5. It’s a Free World Baby (5:13)
6. Drive (Live) (3:31)
7. Star Me Kitten (Featuring William S. Burroughs) (3:31)
8. Revolution (3:05)
9. Leave (Alternate Version) (4:43)
10. Why Not Smile (Alternate Version) (3:02)
11. The Lifting (Demo) (5:21)
12. Beat a Drum (Demo) (4:28)
13. 2JN (3:27)
14. The One I Love (Live) (3:25)
15. Country Feedback (Live) (6:16)

Released by: Warner Bros.
Release date: 2003
Disc one total running time: 76:17
Disc one total running time: 61:22 (special edition only)