The Best of REM

Have been swimming in a sea of music the last three evenings, taking advantage of the unlimited streaming trial on Napster. Have experimented with some new and newish albums, of which more later, but mostly have been revisting old stuff I love but don't have in my hard copy collection. Oddities such as Genesis, Laurie Anderson, Flaming Lips, Nick Drake and Massive Attack have been prevailent, but most of all I enjoyed a 10 hour retrospective of REM's back catalogue, starting in the IRS years but lingering lovingly on their first 3 Warner albums, some of the best music ever let loose into the world! Decided to make a playlist as I went of the absolutely indispensible songs I can't live without and ended up back at the heavily criticised Around The Sun (see earlier post) with a list of 42 tracks - putting to shame the 18 track list they compiled themselves for the recent In Time greatest hits CD. Not many bands can claim a body of work that good, and there were at least another fifty tracks that would not be out of place either. Awesome! But will they ever rise again to produce a decent tune? Kx