Strange as it seems, if REM had split up after leaving IRS, you probably wouldn’t have heard much of them. You’d’ve heard about them far more than you’d actually heard them : faded American legends, spoken of in reverent tones by the few who were there. A band as influential as The Velvet Underground.

IRS never seem to fail to remind us that once upon a time, they had REM as their apprentices... and if they split there they would be legeds. The guitarist would be playing in fair to middling indie bands. The bassist probably working in the industry. The drummer went off to be a farmer, whilst the singer became a mystery

Between 1982 and 1987, when REM were far from a big band, they made five albums for the label. Between 1987 and now, IRS have managed to squeeze five compilations out of this, as well as re-issuing the albums as ‘Vintage Remasters’ with extra bonus songs.

“And I Feel Fine!” then is both tedious repetitive overkill, and a vibrant collection of a band in it’s most experimental and innovative era. After this, it was REM as leftfield stadium rock, and latterly as intelligent miserabilists.  But this?

As the purists say, it’s all about the music. Which in one respect it is. But the words “Music” and “Business” often sit together more comfortably than we admit.

Disc One is a haphazard and largely random selection of 21 songs from their albums, sequenced with little respect for chronology or musical worth. Some baffling choices and omissions, as well as little regard for how the album will actually sound, make this record a perverse REM iPod playlist that, to be frank, anyone could do. You could probably do better. The songs themselves are strange, beautiful and wonderful : REM will probably never write anything as wistful or intruiging as “So.Central Rain”, “Fall On Me”, or “Don’t Go Back To Rockville” ever again. Then again, even at the time their records were oft difficult affairs.

Disc Two is the big draw : twelve rare/unreleased songs from the period (surprising that there are, in fact, any songs left unreleased given IRS’ aggressive re-release schedules), alongside some of the rare b-sides and the “bands choice” of favourite songs from the era. This sees the A- and B-‘s of their first single, as well as a multitude of demos, most of which are unexceptional but functional - and apparent why they weren’t released at the time. Of interest though is “Bad Day (PSA)”, the song that was later exhumed and  whipped into shape to become the lead off single from 2003’s “In Time”. Of the unreleased stuff, the best material is the smattering of concert recordings from the time, showing that perhaps IRS should stop messing around and put out an REM Live Album from the period.

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