The songs Michael Stipe thought best represent REM
REM’s Michael Stipe proposed an interesting method for selecting your favourite songs from a band or the tracks you’re most proud of. Imagine you were embarking on a journey to a distant planet, intending to introduce the extraterrestrial inhabitants to a particular artist—what songs would you choose to represent them? For his own band, Stipe has his picks ready.
Asking an artist for their own top songs from their discography is always revealing. There are some acts who absolutely hate their most famous tracks. No one would ever catch Thom Yorke including ‘Creep’ in his top ten, but ask any music fan for theirs, and it would probably make the cut. It’s doubtful that Bob Dylan would hype up ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ given the amount of time and effort he put into getting away from that sound, but any average listener on a mission to introduce new life to the artist would probably hit play on it.
While artists know their songs better than everyone, they’re not always the best judge on it. They’re too close, too biased, as the songs are forever affected by their personal experience of making the track. However, Stipe’s choices for the songs he’d take into space are surprisingly balanced.
“Songs such as ‘Lotus’, ‘Country Feedback’, ‘E Bow The Letter’, ‘Losing My Religion’ and ‘Man On The Moon’ would definitely be on the iPod I would take through a black hole into some ulterior universe,” Stipe said.
He still has enough love for ‘Losing My Religion’, the band’s biggest and best-known song, to want to take it to another planet. He clearly still sees the worth in the anthemic track, holding onto his pride for it despite the decades spent having to sing the song on repeat. But alongside the hit, he also makes sense for some deeper cuts like ‘Country Feedback’, a song that Stipe improvised.
‘Man On The Moon’ is an especially brilliant choice given the image at hand of Stipe giving these songs to aliens. The idea of extraterrestrial life listening to a song about the moon landing, conspiracy theories and then Stipe having to explain to them who Andy Kaufman was and what kind of comedy he did is a worthy enough image that Nasa should be getting to work to make it happen.
But what’s so great about Stipe’s choices is his genuine sincerity. It’s clear that when he looks back on his career, especially on these tracks, he’s incredibly proud of himself. He said of his imaginary trip to the other side, “If someone there asked me what did I do with my life, I would play them these songs and say, this is music, that’s my voice and these are my thoughts.”
