15) AROUND THE SUN (2004)

The exhausting world tour to promote their successful greatest hits album In Time…1988-2003 took its toll on R.E.M.’s thirteenth album. Around The Sun isn’t bad, merely sterile and overly long, pitched too much towards the cavernous arenas that they had become very accustomed to playing over the previous twelve years. The better songs are ones driven by drum machines rather than session musicians – ‘Electron Blue’ is an elegiac standout – but an overabundance of these works against the album which ends up feeling lethargic. The Q-Tip collaboration ‘Outsiders’ was best left on the studio floor. The only genuine disappointment in R.E.M.’s career.

14) COLLAPSE INTO NOW (2011)

R.E.M.’s swansong continued the good work of its predecessor Accelerate in parts, while reverting to the balladry of Reveal and Up in others, making for an interesting if uneven mix. The singles ‘Oh My Heart’ and ‘Uberlin’ are classic late-era R.E.M., while tracks like ‘Walk It Back’ envelope and soothe the listener. To balance this out, they indulge their rediscovered rock tendencies on ‘Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter’, tapping back in to the word association of ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It’ from nearly a quarter of a century previously. All that said, Collapse Into Now doesn’t really break a sweat at any point. The world looked forward to a supporting tour, but only five months later, the band were no more.

13) UP (1998)

The first R.E.M. album entirely recorded without Bill Berry, Up necessarily forced a re-think upon the remaining members, a conundrum they sought to answer by using drum machines and electronic music recording techniques. Thematically and structurally, it’s a mixed bag and similar to its predecessor New Adventures In Hi-Fi, but Up simply doesn’t have the consistency or quality to match it, often choosing to indulge in moody electronica and slow-moving rock. ‘Lotus’, ‘Diminished’ and the Leonard Cohen cover ‘Hope’ use loops and studio effects to put their often oblique points across. But there’s moments of genuine beauty on Up: the touching lead single ‘Daysleeper’ encapsulated the travelogue theme of the whole record, all about cicadian rhythms and shift-work, while the Beach Boys-influenced ‘At My Most Beautiful’ ranks among R.E.M.’s best ever songs for its sheer serenity. It remains a curate’s egg of a record and one of their least accessible, but there are rewards for the intrepid explorer.

12) REVEAL (2001)

Even five years after Berry’s departure, R.E.M. were still exploring their status as a three-piece and, after the mixed reception for Up, engendered a slight return to their Out Of Time sound but with a liberal smattering of synthesized sounds. The resulting album Reveal was, not coincidentally, a mixed bag; many thought it was a positive step while others thought it was difficult and repetitive.

Tracks such as ‘Saturn Return’, ‘Disappear’ and ‘Beat A Drum’ pushed in the direction of Up but they were also reminiscent of their 1992 release Automatic For The People. The album is strung together with the sound of synth which complements Peter Buck’s prominent layered hooks; whilst Stipe’s vocals offer a more up-front and emotional performance. The biggest hit of the album ‘Imitation Of Life’ is one of Reveal’s many deep-thought tracks about the pleasures of life, and is the most radio-friendly track of the record. Although it was considered by critics and fans to be a tricky R.E.M. release, Reveal highlighted that the band were exploring their newfound confidence after the departure of Berry, and in places it is only Stipe’s vocals which offer a hint to their college rock past.

11) MONSTER (1994)

Arriving after the multi-platinum success of Automatic For The People, R.E.M. chose to duck the bullet by indulging their rock side rather than try to top its predecessor on its own terms, and probably wisely so. But as the group themselves have always said, Monster is a ‘rock’ album with the inverted commas emphasised, a conscious turn into the left-field that necessarily involved breaking a magnificent run of eight consecutive classics. It’s a strange little album, murkily produced and claustrophobic in comparison to virtually all of their previous work, that reveals itself to you over several listens. It also houses a couple of hugely underrated singles (‘What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?’, ‘Tongue’), while most of the rest of the album is characterised by ringing guitar distortion and pedal effects (‘Let Me In’, ‘King Of Comedy’). ‘Strange Currencies’ even cheekily mimics the chord pattern of ‘Everybody Hurts’, this time with piercing, metallic guitar. Monster wrong-footed critics and casual fans, and throughout the rest of the ‘90s R.E.M.’s commercial base gradually shifted to the UK as a result.