Twenty-five years later, the album that invented "alternative rock" still sounds great: anthemic on a bedroom scale, danceable but not robotic, experimental without being oblique. And Michael Stipe's nasal muezzin-croon pulses with brooding emotion even when the lyrics are unintelligible. The bonus disc captures a 1983 Toronto club gig that strips Murmur's sound bare. It's sloppy but thrilling, with outbursts of Stipe's unhinged vibrato and a perfect cover of "There She Goes Again," by the Velvet Underground — patron saints of a sound that R.E.M. developed into something bigger and longer-lived than anyone would've guessed.

“Time to Pretend”

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”