I feel like lately there's been a lot of R.E.M. discourse happening, maybe thanks in part to The Bear, the excellent Hulu drama (seriously, watch it, I didn't think I'd like it but guess what), which features a couple R.E.M. songs. Strange Currencies, Half a World Away and Oh My Heart. I had to look up that last one, late-period R.E.M. kinda escapes me.
I'm not one of those "Oh I only listen to the I.R.S. stuff" assholes, but I did kinda fall off after Up. It just didn't feel the same at the time, I was more on the fringes with those releases and while I kept up, I just wasn't into them as much. I'm a completely different asshole but I've been reassessing. Maybe I've changed as I've gotten older (most definitely), or maybe I'm just trying to find bits of light in this bleak ass bullshit hellscape. So yeah, I'm getting there regarding the post-Up releases.
In any case, in the wake of The Bear, the guys were on NME last month and posted a 40-track playlist which consisted of 10 fave songs from each member of the band. The results are pretty great (Stipe: 1-10, Buck: 11-20, Mills: 21-30, Berry: 31-40) and there's something from pretty much every era of the band.
Also, I run a Plex server for my music streaming, so I recreated this playlist and tacked on my own 10 fave songs at the end, without overlapping any of their picks, to make an even 50. A few of these, I was mildly surprised that they didn't make the cut, but who am I to say, I'm just some guy. These are my 10:- At My Most Beautiful
- Driver 8
- Fall on Me
- (Don't Go Back to) Rockville
- Leave
- Arms of Love
- Love is All Around
- Oddfellows Local 151
- Ignoreland
- Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)
The band also cut a new video for Strange Currencies that's basically old footage/stills interspersed with clips from The Bear, which you can check out below.
Again, I recommend watching The Bear. My friend Kelly told me about it last year, she even prefaced it with "it probably doesn't sound like your thing, but" and she was right. It didn't sound like my thing at all (I'm mainly a horror and sci-fi kinda guy) but I gave it a shot because she usually has good recs up her sleeve. And yeah, I loved it.
Also, this morning I read this article by this guy I'm unfamiliar with, Luke O'Neil, but it was linked on IG by comedian April Richardson, who I like. She's pretty much a giant R.E.M. fan and the article is basically this guy Luke gushing over the band and posting his fave songs. He gets a bunch of his friends/colleagues to write about their R.E.M. top 5s, April Richardson being one of them. You can read the article here, if you're so inclined.