[quote="MmmDonuts" post="420765656"]
Where should I start with R.E.M.?

And where should I go with Pixies after Doolittle?
[/quote]

I'll do this backwards: Surfer Rosa. Pixies only have four records. Boom. Done.

Okay, now to talk R.E.M.:

Where to start with the group, I feel, depends mostly on how you know about them already. If the first thing you think of when the name is mentioned is seeing them on MTV in the mid-80s, jangly and paranoid, I would certainly not suggest the same sequence of records as for someone whose first impression of them was seeing them on The Simpsons or (more likely as I get older and the world does not) someone just hearing about them as a closed book, a non-going concern, a band that used to be around and is now occasionally on your local Jack or Bob FM station. I'll provide you with some options, let me know what you think. I'm realizing that I tend to crack a lot of jokes when I talk about music, but I seriously do love these guys and nearly all of their output. But I digress. R.E.M. is a band with a very solid album discography that allows for fairly reasonable chronological divisions between "eras." Thus, we get headings. Naturally, caveat lector: some people will think this entire post and any opinions contained within are a pile of horseshit.


[b]1982-1985: The Songs That Defined College Radio (Not Written By A Guy Named Westerberg)[/b]

This is the sound of jangly guitars and murky poetry (read: mumbled lyrics), it's Southern Gothic terror and French New Wave cool all rolled up in one Rickenbacker-wrapped package. While they didn't immediately leap onto the national stage with their debut EP (1982's Chronic Town) or LP (1983's Murmur), as 1983 rolled towards its end they found themselves a talked-about name in nascent indie circles. The next two records, 1984's Reckoning and 1985's Fables of the Reconstruction, continued in an exciting but consistent arc, with their songwriting strengthening (especially on Reckoning---So. Central Rain is the band's first all-time smash and there's only one dud on the record, the overlong Camera) and their musicianship diversifying (especially on Fables---Feeling Gravitys Pull's guitarwork is a shocking departure, and the country influences on songs like Driver 8 and Cant Get There From Here lift what is often a dour, dark LP).


[b]1986-1988: The Venues Get Bigger (And So Do The Politics. And The Hooks, For That Matter)[/b]
This is where the sound got a little more out-and-out rock 'n' roll, and the group started having hits. Early weirdness mostly out of the way, the mid-period weirdness can commence. After the aforementioned darkness and dourness, they switched producers, wrote a whole batch of killer songs and had massive success with them. 1986's Lifes Rich Pageant...isn't quite bombastic so to speak, but it's got hooks. Melodies. Riffs. Songs that'll get into your head and never leave, in the best possible sense. Stipe, as main/only lyricist, also began to get political in this period, with clear statements about environmental causes and governmental distrust mixing with the layered metaphor of his earlier writing. The group continued in a sonically similar vein with their fifth record, Document,

[b]1991-1994: The Biggest Band In The World (Not Named U2 or Nirvana)[/b]
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)

[b]1996-2001: R.E.M.'s Ditch Trilogy (Only Not Quite As Loud As Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy)[/b]
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)

[b]2004-2011: The Elder Statesmen of Alternative Rock (Hired The Drummer From Ministry?)[/b]
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)

[b]Odds, Sods, Live And Otherwise (Also If You're A Total Nerd You'll Need A Laserdisc Player)[/b]
Dead Letter Office (1987)
Eponymous (1988)
In Time (2003)
R.E.M. Live (2007)
Live At The Olympia (2009)
Succumbs, Tourfilm, etc.

[b]To Sum Up (aka Too Long, Didn't Read)
[i]Start with Reckoning (1984), Lifes Rich Pageant (1986) and Automatic for the People (1992), then listen to everything else if you like those.[/i][/b]