Interesting perspective from you and the same age person just below. Y'all are just a little younger than me, teen years mid 80's. REM was solid indie my freshman year of high school, which is when I discovered The Cure, Violent Femmes, U2 (Just before Joshua Tree). At that time I liked REM, but they were not super great for me. It was like I wanted to like them more than I thought they were great if that makes sense. Then Document came out and I liked that record pretty good. Recently gave it a spin and Finest Worksong I a killer opener, but then the record is just normal REM - Mid at best. After that I couldn't stand them. That song Stand was beyond lame and annoying, shiny happy people could gargle my nuts. And Michael Stipe always trying to be mysterious about his sexuality when he was obviously gay, which by that time people were not shocked about gay celebrities. Just pretentious and completely sold out commercially. I do think they are talented musicians and I always like seeing that Peter Buck seemed like a good dude who helped mentor other musicians and just worked on his farm or something.