Click to listen to R.E.M.'s 'We All Go Back To Where We Belong'

No better time than a breakup for a long goodbye: R.E.M.'s eighth compilation LP is a 40-song blowout. Chronological evenhandedness short-shrifts their vaunted 1980s but shows that their confused past 15 years did produce some Georgia peaches – see "Leaving New York" and "Überlin," which give the dreaminess of their early days a mournful cast. There are also three songs recorded after 2011's Collapse Into Now: "A Month of Saturdays" is Green-like dance rock; "We All Go Back to Where We Belong" goes to breakup-ballad heaven; and "Hallelujah" is a forlorn art-pop meltdown with Michael Stipe and Mike Mills sharing one last golden yodel before receding into the great beyond.  

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“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.”