The Cure hands down are the best.

Disintegration is a top 5 for me but not only that I find they've got plenty of masterpieces whereas The Smiths only have 1 imo. That run from Seventeen Seconds to Pornography and then the run from The head on the door to Wish is just stupidly good and much more varied.

I concur about Cure. So for me, it would be: Cure > Smiths > REM.

I'm going to have to side with the majority on this one and say The Smiths as well. Both are good and R.E.M. are very consistent across many albums while The Smiths only have 4 but The Smiths leave a longer lasting impression.