evenflow

Here's the tracklist for their greatest hits album.

01 Man on the Moon
02 The Great Beyond [from Man on the Moon soundtrack]
03 Bad Day [previously unreleased]
04 What's The Frequency, Kenneth?
05 All The Way To Reno (You're Gonna Be A Star)
06 Losing My Religion
07 E-Bow The Letter
08 Orange Crush
09 Imitation of Life
10 Daysleeper
11 Animal [previously unreleased]
12 The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
13 Stand
14 Electrolite
15 All The Right Friends [from Vanilla Sky soundtrack]
16 Everybody Hurts
17 At My Most Beautiful
18 Nightswimming

They omitted the singles from Monster, their worst album with Warner. ( IMO )

Source: pitchforkmedia.com

musick

"Frequency" is from Monster....which I agree is a horendous album
This comp just shows how tired and irrelevant this once brilliant band became after AFTP.

take your contractual obligation filler record somewhere else
no thanks

SunMonkey

I don't know. I realize every best-of album results in crys for this song or that, but come on, where is It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)?

Wasn't What's The Frequency, Kenneth? their first single off of Monster?

Edit: In fact, there is nothing old on here. Is it only limited to recent albums, Green and up?

Edit Edit: I guess so. Sorry, I just saw it was 1988-2003

evenflow

Oh yeah, my bad.

Hollowgen

ehh, so is this a greatest hits from their entire career, or just from this particular record label? man, i'd love to get a greatest hits spanning their entire career.

dolphinboy

That's really lame. I'll stick with my own personal mixes and hope for a box set. That's not worth buying in my opinion.

RevLiver

If you combine Eponymous with this collection, you've pretty much got a career-spanning hits set. Granted, Eponymous uses alternate mixes on a couple of the songs and it's far from complete, but I never expected WB to issue a collection that highlights songs from the band's pre-WB days. Especially since most agree that their pre-WB days were their strongest.

wendersfan

Was Green their first Warner's album, or was it Document? I stopped listening to them after Fables of the Reconstruction anyway. I know Automatic For the People was supposed to be fantastic, but I didn't like it that much.

Hollowgen

i find it annoying that record labels deem it acceptible to call a compilation "greatest hits" from an artist if it doesn't span the entire career. i know there are legal reasons and such, but it's such a ripoff to the fans. how can you call it "greatest hits" if it clearly doesn't include all the hits???

MurraySiskind

Monster is worth it just for "Let Me In" which I think is one of their better songs of the Warner years. I wish they would've included that instead of "Frequency" which is pretty bland stuff. But I agree that Monster isn't their best work.

If you only listen to their two greatest hits collections then you are really missing some great stuff, especially the songs off of Lifes Rich Pageant. These Days, Cuyahoga, Begin the Begin, The Flowers of Guatemala...these are all brilliant songs...especially Cuyahoga.

MurraySiskind

This is a disappointing collection. I guess its expected that the record company would choose mostly "singles" rather than some of their more interesting and challenging songs. I can't believe The Great Beyond is on there though. I suppose you can't please everyone. . .

bigjim25

I think they should have made a set with hits on 1 disk & bsides soundtrack songs on the other disk. A few missing hits:
1988 - Pop Song '89
1991 - Radio Song (one of my favs) & Shiny Happy People
1992 - Drive
1994 - Crush With Eyeliner & Bang And Blame

evenflow

Shiny Happy People? No.
Drive? Yes.

LivingINClip

Where's "Bang and Blame"., "Shiny Happy People". "It's the end of the world" and other great songs?
This is a rip off.

cdollaz

I can't believe At My Most Beautiful is on here.

Buttmunker

I'm surprised that record companies don't take their cue from the success of The Eagles - Their Greatest Hits from 1976 - it is the second best selling album of all-time (it jumps from #2 to #1 back to #2 with Michael Jackson's Thriller).

This is a disappointing set, and I will not bother with it. Where's Bang & Blame? Pah! Or the one where the video has their nipples blocked? Hello, I'm sorry, I know you, I knew you, I think I can remember your name. Hi, Hi, Hi

Mr. Kite!

IMO New Adventures In HI Fi is an excellent album. Definitely my favorite of the WB years. And Monster isn't all bad. I really like Let Me In, You, and Star 69. I'd love to hear AFTP in dvd-a 5.1...

SAShepherd

What are you suggesting, exactly? That record companies should put out shorter GH albums? That record companies should only put out GH albums from bands with lots of #1 singles? Sorry -- I really want to know your point, but can't figure it out...

While the tracklist might not match closely my 18 favorite songs from R.E.M., I don't think this is a surprising list. It's their singles from the Warners years, for the most part, including 2 non-album tracks, and 2 previously unreleased tracks. It's likely that R.E.M. had not a small amount of input into the tracklist, given that they don't like Shiny Happy People at all, but was probably one of their bigger hits of their past 15 years.

Predictable? Yes. But so are most "Greatest Hits" albums.

I think the Pitchfork article also said there would be a rarities compilation attached to the CD (a la early copies of the U2 collections) -- that's what's probably going to convince me to buy this album.

Brain Stew

I think this will be coming out as a DVD-A around the time that some of there other albums come out on DVD-A, so perhaps it will have some nice extras on it or something. I am putting of buying anymore R.E.M. albums until they are released as DVD-A.

That said, if you are a big fan of R.E.M. you probably have all these tracks, so including the two soundtrack and two unreleased tunes is a nice touch for an R.E.M completist who doesn't want to buy the soundtracks.

If you are looking for a good introduction to R.E.M. this disc along with Eponymous will give you a great career overview, something a well designed greatest hits package should do.

Buttmunker

My point is that The Eagles - Their Greatest Hits delivered on what it was packaged for - a complete hits collection. It shouldn't matter if Michael Stipe dislikes Shiny Happy People - his fan base liked it enough to make it a hit, which made the album Out of Time sell even more copies than it did with their first hit, Losing My Religion. Hit singles sell albums, and that is what record companies appreciate. So, record companies should release hits compilations with all the hits.

That's my point.

SAShepherd

OK, thanks, that clarifies it.

The one thing that probably complicates matters is that I don't think R.E.M. ever had lots of hits (as defined by high rankings on the Billboard charts), which means you have lots of songs on the compilation that are stretching the definition of "hit," thereby leaving it more open to criticism when songs others like better (though never released as singles) are omitted.

Hiro11

Considering that the the majority of the best REM material is not their singles, I'd never buy a Greatest Hits comp.

My REM comp:

1. "Sitting Still"
2. "Moral Kiosk"
3. "Shaking Through"
4. "Seven Chinese Brothers"
5. "Don't Go Back (To Rockville)" (single)
6. "Pretty Persuasion"
7. "Cuyahoga"
8. "Fall On Me" (single)
9. "Disturbance at the Heron House"
10. "End of the World as We Know it" (single)
11. "You Are the Everything"
12. "Me in Honey"
13. "Try not to Breathe"
14. "Nighswimming" (single)
15. "Find the River"

Buttmunker

It's true that R.E.M. didn't have an abundance of Top 10 hits - essentially, they had four: The One I Love, Stand, Losing My Religion, and Shiny Happy People. But, they could have then included the "radio hits" - songs that generated heavy airplay points and, of course, include all Top 100 hits.

lostatmidnight

I think 'Monster' is a very good album, much much unbelievably better than the two previous, dull collections that were 'UP' and 'the last album we put out that Jake listened to three times and finally ended getting rid of along with UP.' I can say don't even care about r.e.m anymore but for the albums I already have.

Matt

From a short interview with Stipe in the new FHM:

After reading the track-listing here, which was about what I expected, anyway, I took my copies of the seven albums represented on it, made MP3s of them all, and have been enjoying that for the past couple of days.

The two "new" tracks, I might download from somewhere, or might not. But I won't be buying the hits disc, that's for sure.