Radio Free Europe” also kicked off their first proper album, Murmur, a murky, alarmingly original collection that wasn’t punk, hard rock, country, new wave, or anything else on the radio in 1983. It was the first true shot of what came to be called college rock. Murmur showcased Buck’s wand... 

 Reckoning lightened things a bit, with the effervescent pop of “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” and the classically constructed, moody “so. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” nearly becoming hits. The songwriting was as strong as Murmur’s though the atmospherics were more conventional. 

 Fables of the Reconstruction was significantly darker; even the single “Driver 8” tells a story of death and destruction. The instrumentation broadened slightly, with punchy horns on “Can’t Get There From Here” and the banjo arpeggios of the heartbreakingly beautiful “Wendell Gee” e... 

 R.E.M. continued to step forward on 1986’s Lifes Rich Pageant, which may be the band’s best album. Equal parts gorgeous and whimsical, Pageant is highlighted by the stunning, swooning “Fall on Me,” and the almost-as-perfect Civil War reverie “Swan Swan H.” Openhearted and accessible, ... 

 It was followed by the B-side collection Dead Letter Office, which demonstrated that even in its throwaway efforts, R.E.M. had more ideas than most bands could put into an entire album. They covered Aerosmith, Roger Miller, and Pylon; reworked their own songs for no reason other than amusement; a... 

 Document was a commercial breakthrough as well as another landmark record. “The One I Love” became the band’s first Top Ten hit, though the anthemic single “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” had more lasting power. If the songwriting wasn’t as consistently e... 

 The first R.E.M. best-of, 1988’s Eponymous, is worth owning, as it compiles every hit through Document, but those early albums are must-haves for fans anyway. In Time picks up most of the best of the latter half of R.E.M.’s career and may make more sense to own than Eponymous, since the later... 

 Green, released on Election day, 1988, ended the first phase of R.E.M.’s career with the catchy classic “Stand,” complete with wah-wah-guitar solo and double key changes at the end; it found a deserved second life as the theme to Chris Elliott’s deeply weird Fox sitcom “Get a Life.” B... 

 R.E.M. returned in 1991 with Out of Time and the intricately constructed single “Losing My Religion.” But aside from that gorgeously fragile piece, the band sounded bored, switching instruments for no apparent purpose and tarting up unfinished song ideas with string arrangements and Kate Pier... 

 The pensive Automatic for the People found Stipe not just clear and direct but almost didactic on paeans to the kids on Top 30 hits like “Drive” and “Everybody Hurts.” The Andy Kaufman tribute “Man on the Moon” was an unlikely smash, but more of the album was given over to dark, death... 

 Monster, the followup, couldn’t have been more different: The guitars were amped up, but the songwriting was far less consistent and the emotions had returned to opacity. Buck storms through the excellent single “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?,” complete with backward guitar solo, and his... 

 New Adventures in Hi-fi, from 1996, feels like a retreat–it was largely recorded live on tour and lacked anything resembling a hit single. The songs were drawn out; Many of them clocked in at five minutes; the siren-fueled “Leave” tops seven. While “New Test Leper” and “E-Bow the Lett... 

 Reveal, from 2001, was worse. The rhythmic drive of classic R.E.M. was missing, despite the sweetness of tracks like “Imitation of Life” and “All the Way to Reno.” Layered arrangements and strings couldn’t compensate for the lack of sharp edges the band’s best work had displayed. R.E.... 

 The first R.E.M. best-of, 1988’s Eponymous, is worth owning, as it compiles every hit through Document, but those early albums are must-haves for fans anyway. In Time picks up most of the best of the latter half of R.E.M.’s career and may make more sense to own than Eponymous, since the later... 

 R.E.M. was never less interesting than on Around the Sun, easily the worst album of its career. The virtually lifeless material was unrecognizable from past glories, with electronic adornments, leaden pacing and bewildering guest appearances (Q-Tip, anybody?) proffered in place of the substantial... 

 Berry was clearly irreplaceable. And in his wake, R.E.M. tended to have more success sounding relevant when playing live versus in the studio, as evidenced by 2007’s R.E.M. Live. Without all the studio goop, songs like “Electron Blue” and “Walk Unafraid” revealed their true selves as wo... 

 Enter Accelerate, which, although not the complete return to form advertised by sympathetic journalists, was certainly a step back in the right direction of R.E.M.’s stripped-down, fast-paced roots. Featuring material tested out live in Dublin in 2007 and buzzing by in a lightning-quick 34 minu... 

 Live at the Olympia, drawn from the aforementioned shows where most of the “Accelerate” material was debuted, featured solid renditions of old classics like “Harborcoat,” “Sitting Still” and “1,000,000,” which had been largely abandoned from R.E.M. set lists for two decades.