Context, dear boy.
It's very easy to look back at something twenty-years old with modern eyes and dismiss it, but the early careers of both of these bands were truly ground breaking. More so in the case of REM. At the time they were slogging around small clubs playing guitar-based "alt-rock" to 100 people, the entire European music industry had gone to hell in a Stock-Aitken-Waterman powered shit cart.

Few people in the UK had even heard of REM, let alone anything BY them until their SIXTH studio album, because their tiny indie label IRS didn't even have a distribution deal in Europe.

I agree, their music has dated poorly and current releases are poor.

But that doesn't stop you from being a massive bell-end.
( Linbox has a serious dunk habit, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 17:47, Reply)