I listened to Around the Sun today for the first time in about five years... it's really not a total disaster... I kind of think that though the band was undoubtedly in decline, maybe it's got the bad rep it has because America/Peter Buck didn't like it.

Anyway, people are always posting 'do an REM best of' threads here, and it's always silly, given that virtually everything they did for 20 years was excellent... but what would you extract from those troublesome later years to construct a 12-ish track compilation?

I know some idiots don't like Up, but let's take it as Reveal onwards...

1. The Lifting
2. I've Been High
3. Imitation of Life
4. Electron Blue
5. I Wanted to be Wrong
6. Aftermath
7. The Ascent of Man
8. Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance (live at the Olympia)
9. Supernatural Superserious
10. Discoverer
11. It Happened Today
12. Blue

A good recorded live version of She Just Wants To Be would get in there easily enough...