Really? I think 'New Adventures In Hi-Fi' is terribly underrated & happens to be my favourite album by them. As for 'Automatic For The People'. has some great songs in 'Drive' & 'Try Not To Breathe' but is, to me, a patchy effort.

Sorry, I phrased that wrong. I meant that I like up until and including NAIHF but not so much the later stuff. Accelerate is pretty good though.

Let's get this straight. ATS was baaad... Stipe even said so.

Yeah it definately ranks low for me as well. I just bought it so I could have a complete REM collection!

I guess your talking about 'Around The Sun'. I know its quite a poppy album, but I actually love it & rank amongst one of their best along with New Adventures In Hi-Fi. The songs 'Leaving New York' & 'Electron Blue' are excellent.

I think their worst album is probably Out Of Time.

EDIT: I can really get my head around people slating the 'Around The Sun' song: Your not seriously telling me this isnt a great song:
.

I know it isnt their best work but just from the first time I heard the album it just clicked with me & I have loved it ever since.

Around the Sun as a whole was not their finest piece of work, but I like "Leaving New York." It's such a beautiful song.

Out of Time is not one of my favourites either, but I listen to it as a whole every once in a while. "Losing My Religion" is a masterpiece in my books; a lot of people say that, but I really believe it. "Shiny Happy People" not so much, but I still think it's a fun song. It's too bad they refuse to perform it live, along with "Stand."

Edit: I would actually quite enjoy singing "Shiny Happy People" along with them if it was ever performed live!

Nice lyrics thar. T_T

Anyway, Around the Sun was by no means a "poppy" album. It was a collection of slow, similar, melodic tunes that were very tired. Some interesting lyrical concepts, but not much more.

I actually quite liked Out of Time, along with most people. The real key tracks there were Losing My Religion, Low, Near Wild Heaven (With Mike Mills on lead vocals), Belong, Half A World Away, Country Feedback (A very underrated tune) and Me In Honey (With Kate from the B-52s).

Those songs are all excellent pieces of work, albeit very different from pre-1991 R.E.M.

Traveling a different route doesn't make the music bad. I'd put Out of Time towards the middle of their discography as far as how good it is.

Firstly, 'Shiny Happy People' along with 'Stand' suck man. I dont mind 'Losing My Religion' but its so overplayed it really gets on your tits after a while. I think the whole of 'Around The Sun' is excellent & its definitely in their top 5 best albums along with 'New Adventures In Hi-Fi' which I cant speak highly enough of (as you may have already noticed).

Stand and Shiny Happy People aren't meant to be looked at as serious songs. They were both written to make fun of the popular music on the radio those days. The problem was that people were stupid enough to think that those songs were great pop songs, and they charted highly. I'm sure Michael was cracking up when he heard that his song that was written to make fun of pop music had become a pop song!

Shiny Happy People is actually a satire on the effects of Prozac.