Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011

Artist: R.E.M.
Label: Warner Music
Website: remhq.com

It seemed a bit weird to me that the day after R.E.M. announced their break up that the details of Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011 were released. To me, it was like we are going away but here is one parting shot to take your money. Well after sitting down with this 2 disc compilation I hereby eat my words.

This collection represents the band's first career-spanning anthology and gives them to you in chronological order. This of course means that it is really divided into three parts being college R.E.M., radio hit and award winning R.E.M. and lastly - trio R.E.M. after Bill Berry's exit in 1997. With that in mind, this compilation stays, like it or not, to this path as 13 songs are from the IRS records catalog, 14 are from the Warner Bros. Records days and 13 come from the trio years.

What you find is that this approach really does a spectacular job of covering their extensive body of work as most of their singles made the cut. Now that doesn't bless this release completely as there are still some question marks. Including 3 tracks from this year's Collapse Into Now [2011] seems one too many, even though they are not bad songs but the album time constraint means that something else more classic was cut.

Adding "Living Well Is The Best Revenge" from Accelerate [2008] once again selects a song that is not bad but could have been a spot better used, although it helped stick to the equal splitting of the R.E.M. timeline. Personally, not including "Cuyahoga", "Superman", or "Pretty Persuasion" from their earlier material here was hurtful to my ear and instead having "Shiny Happy People" included was too easy, especially given it was a track that Stipe himself always said he hated.

There are also 3 new songs included here which are solid but highlighted by the ballad "We All Go Back To Where We Belong", that represents a perfect R.E.M. track. At the end of the day, you would be surprised on how well all of these songs work together. You recognize how lengthy a career R.E.M. had and how even the later material was consciously planned out and in this setting, sounds better than on the albums themselves.

Will R.E.M. ever come back? Probably not but you never know. The good thing till then is Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011 does paint the perfect picture of R.E.M.'s career and is a proud representation of why they will always be near the top in a list of the greatest bands that ever picked up an instrument.

Christopher Anthony

For more of Christopher Anthony's music reviews, check out The Fire Note