R.E.M has collected, via NME magazine, a playlist of the 40 best songs from his discography to celebrate his reappearance in the series The Bear.
This return to the band’s 15 albums follows the airing of the second season of The Bear series, which features a number of the band’s tracks, including several versions of the classic “Strange Currencies” from the Monster album.
Today, frontman Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry picked their own 40 favorite songs.
Each member of R.E.M chose their top 10 tracks: the first quarter of the playlist being that of Michael Stipe, which starts with “World Leader Pretend”, a track from the 1988 album Green.
Then tracks 11-20 are chosen by Peter Buck, including “All The Way To Reno” and “You’re In The Air”, while tracks 21-30 are selected by Mike Mills and include the classics “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, “Orange Crush” and “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth”.
The final 10 songs are drummer Bill Berry’s favorite ‘Rotary Ten’ – from their 1986 album Lifes Rich Pageant – as well as 1992’s hit ‘Find The River’.
Released in the UK early last week, the latest episodes of The Bear have seen a further surge in popularity for the band, which is explained by the frequent presence of tracks from their discography, including multiple versions of “Strange Currencies”.
Taken from their ninth studio album, Monster, these variations include the original mix from 1994, a remix by Scott Litt created in 2019, and an unreleased demo of the song which is shared exclusively for the show.
Additionally, R.E.M and the show’s creators have also joined forces to create a full new video for the song – combining footage from the band’s 1995 tour with clips from the show.
This article is originally published on rtbf.be
