I forgot how wonderful early R.E.M. was

Produced by Joe Boyd, who also produced Fairport Convention's first 5 albums including British folk masterpiece Leige & Leif as well as Pink Floyd's very first single, Arnold Layne.

Agreed. Everything up to and including "Monster" was phenomenal.

The only glitch would be "Shiny Happy People".  Many like that song....I could do without it. 

After "Monster" came the song "E-Bow The Letter".  The lyrics were pretty much talking to music.  That is - not with the beat at all. 

As such, that put me off any further R.E.M. recordings.

Joker's Wilde

I think Lifes Rich Pageant is the best album of the 1980s. I bought that one shortly after it came out and it was my introduction to R.E.M. But speaking of the wonderful early stuff, I thought Chronic Town was a phenomenal debut. I bought it about 1988 or 89 on cassette. I listened to the first song about ten times before I listened to the rest of it. It was absolutely hypnotic. I gave up buying their new stuff after I heard Losing My Religion on the radio. Something was missing there.

I'm partial to Murmur.

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Underneath the illuminated facade of ‘Shiny Happy People’ lay a serious message that needed to be heard.

The song was released in 1991, two years after the Tiananmen Square uprising when the Chinese government clamped down on student demonstrators, killing hundreds of people in the process in an event which has left a scar on humanity ever since. With the song using the phrase ‘Shiny Happy People‘, which they took from Chinese propaganda posters, there began an attempt to con the world into believing into a very different image of what was going on under the regime in the early 1990s.

Michael Stipe called this “a really fruity, kind of bubblegum song,” in an interview with The Quietus. He later admitted that he was a slightly embarrassed when it became a big hit because of its light-hearted sound on the surface, one which was not in line with the kind of artist he wanted to become. The song was even once considered to be the theme tune for hit television sitcom Friends which would have put the material on an even wilder trajectory.

“Many people’s idea of R.E.M, and me in particular, is very serious, with me being a very serious kind of poet,” Stipe maintained.” But I’m also actually quite funny—hey, my bandmates think so, my family thinks so, my boyfriend thinks so, so I must be. But that doesn’t always come through in the music. People have this idea of who I am probably because when I talk on camera, I’m working so hard to articulate my thoughts that I come across as very intense.”

The track was supposed to be poking fun at the idiocy of the Chinese regime who, at the time, were spreading continuous lies and the dark truth behind ‘Shiny Happy People’ was an uncomfortable one for Stipe as the song developed into a pop radio-friendly hit. What it had become was somehow representative of the propaganda that the Chinese government were sharing as people digested the positivity oozing out of the track which hid the uncomfortable reality.

For me, you can't go wrong with any of their albums up to and including New Adventures.

I'd say Murmur will always be my favorite.