My Greatest 100 (or so) Albums...

Monster (Warner Brothers, 1994) REM. I think this is probably their best album, and they've made a lot of great ones. Here, they got away from the boingy stuff they had started with Green (and I don't consider boingy an insult, they made three great boingy albums) and got a little more intense. As the preeminent alternative American band, what they did and do has mattered, this album reaffirmed that one of the things that made them special was their ability to reinvent their sound while maintaining there amazingly high songwriting standards (there's an Irish band who've done the same thing - we'll discuss them soon). This is a great collection of songs, and I think, "Strange Currencies" is my favorite. Check it out, if you haven't in awhile. And if you don't have it, you can get it through the Amazon Banners here.