Send "R.E.M. " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Remhq |
 The band will cap its 31-year recording career with its first-ever definitive greatest hits album, due out from Warner Bros. Records on November 15th. The 40-song retrospective-- R.E.M., PART LIES, PART HEART, PART TRUTH, PART GARBAGE, 1982 - 2011--includes tracks from both the IRS and Warner years plus three brand-new songs. One of the new tracks, We All Go Back to Where We Belong, goes to radio and on sale on October 18th. Read the Warner Bros. press release which includes Track-listing for the Greatest Hits below: After R.E.M. ignited the blogosphere on September 21st with the news that they had decided to “call it a day as a band” via a statement on their website, the beloved band have announced that they will release their final album, R.E.M., Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, 1982 – 2011, on Warner Bros. Records on November 15th, 2011. The album is a 40-song career-spanning retrospective that collects, for the first time ever, songs from R.E.M.’s entire back catalog, including the pioneering American band’s years on both the IRS label (1982 to 1987) and Warner Bros. Records (1988 to 2011). The album is currently available for pre-order on Amazon here. A brand-new song, “We All Go Back To Where We Belong,” goes to radio and will be available for sale on October 18th. R.E.M. formed in 1980 when singer Michael Stipe met guitarist Peter Buck in an Athens, GA, record store where Buck worked. After recruiting bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry, R.E.M. released its first single, “Radio Free Europe,” in 1981, followed by 1982’s Chronic Town EP, capturing the imagination of a new generation of music lovers and bringing “guitar pop back into the underground lexicon,” as All-Music put it. Widely credited with inventing the college-rock genre, R.E.M. became the most influential American alternative rock band in history — inspiring such artists as Sonic Youth, Pavement, Nirvana, and Radiohead — for achieving multi-platinum mainstream success while maintaining their distinct identity. Over the course of its career, the band has released 15 studio albums: Murmur (1983), Reckoning (1984), Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), Document (1987), Green (1988), Out of Time (1991), Automatic For The People (1992), Monster (1994), New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), Up (1998), Reveal (2001), Around the Sun (2004), Accelerate (2008), and Collapse Into Now (2011). They have sold more than 85 million albums worldwide....full text |
| Npr |
| A two-disc, 40-song overview of R.E.M.'s career, Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage hits many key points in the band's history. But, as often happens with compilations, they're merely glanced at: This is a CliffsNotes rendering, not the full measure of a group that rose from the scruffy clubs of Athens, Ga., to show zillions of other bands a path toward creative — and, crucially, commercial — independence. From the very beginning, documented here with the still-galvanizing "Radio Free Europe" from Murmur, R.E.M. challenged listeners to rethink what rock could be. Its intricate acoustic/electric guitar latticeworks and inscrutable lyrics defied glib analysis; heck, they couldn't be parsed in one sitting, and many reviews of the early records find critics confessing that they didn't have a clue what the songs were about. That didn't matter: R.E.M. made outsiderness a virtue. Its music was dusty and unkempt, with hints of '60s idealism and bravely wistful harmonies, elements alien to the rock of the early '80s. The band's rapid success, fueled by an emphasis on independence and canny publicity, showed the nascent indie-rock nation it was possible to cultivate an audience for uncompromising music without resorting to the carpet-bombing rock hype of the '70s. R.E.M. got good really fast, and in its first "period," which ends after 1985's Fables of the Reconstruction, stretched and pulled its basic sonic signature any number of ways. Fables, produced by Joe Boyd and represented here by "Driver 8" and "Life and How to Live It," marks the beginning of vocalist Michael Stipe's attempts to stop being so cryptic and begin making "sense" with his lyrics. He communicates in discernible images and in some cases even tells stories. The highlight-reel approach of Part Lies, out Nov. 15, doesn't do justice to Stipe's evolution as a lyricist — it offers only the most famous of his early word-picture jumbles, and then jumps right over some cool stuff and into the novelty-song list-making of "It's The End of the World As We Know It."...full text |
| Pitchfork |
| R.E.M. spent the majority of their 31-year career putting out top-quality albums, while a chunk of their audience wished they would just break up already. Though some of this was a bit reactionary and a by-product of their roots in the nascent indie rock scene of the 1980s, it was mainly a consequence of one of the band's most admirable qualities-- a restless desire to reinvent themselves with each record and create a discography in which each new entry had a distinct character. This much was clear by 1984: R.E.M. could have mined indefinitely the fascinating blend of murky atmosphere and crystal clear chiming guitar parts on their debut, Murmur-- lord knows many other bands of the era tried-- but they took a left turn into the sunnier, more lyrically direct Reckoning and kept throwing curveballs at their audience from that point onward. This tendency yielded a rich body of work spanning 15 studio albums, but the creative shifts-- however organic they may seem in context-- gave listeners valid reasons to jump ship along the way. It makes just as much sense to enjoy all their records as it does for someone who favors Peter Buck's early jangle-centric guitar style to recoil at his flamboyantly distorted tone on Monster, or for fans of their immensely popular chamber pop records Out of Time and Automatic for the People to shrug off the skewed, highly politicized arena rock of their late 80s records. This isn't even factoring in the uneven albums they made following the departure of original drummer and songwriter Bill Berry, which spanned from the tentative lounge pop of Up to the often dreary melodrama of Around the Sun and the "back to basics" rock of Accelerate. With this in mind, Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011-- the band's first career-spanning anthology-- does an exceptional job of presenting this body of work as a chronological survey that neatly summarizes their major themes and artistic tangents while being highly listenable. The song selection is exceptional-- a few relatively minor singles didn't make the cut, but every major hit is here, presented alongside crucial album tracks such as "Country Feedback", "Begin the Begin", and "Life and How to Live It". The quality of the material up through at least the middle of the second disc is unimpeachable; the sheer concentration of classic tunes makes a strong case for the band ranking among the 20th century's greatest songwriting partnerships. The set handles the band's leaner years with grace and minimal revisionism, though the electronic and ambient textures of Up are sidelined in favor of that album's delicate Beach Boys homage "At My Most Beautiful". A few wild card selections from their more recent records, such as Accelerate's "Living Well Is the Best Revenge" and "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" from Collapse Into Now, shine in this context....full text |
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