I’m with mksun. I was one of thousands of college DJ’s who were swept away by their first EP release Chronic Town and saw them live a bunch of times those years. To my younger ears, REM, along with a few lesser known bands such as the Replacements and Hüsker Dü, revolutionized a pretty stagnant music scene (bad hair bands, Huey Lewis et al & Talking Heads/Police/Clash/E Costello with 1 album remaining). I always felt that Chronic Town, Murmur, Reckoning, Fables.... & Lifes Rich Pageant are among one of the best album runs in music history. And although they would still make some great songs afterwards (What’s the Frequency, Man on the Moon, etc), I lost much of my interest afterwards as Michael Stipe’s lyrical style abruptly changed from more his more dreamy, rhythmic poetry towards to a more overt, literal political sermons. The politics of such rarely ages well (see Sting’s "Russians").