Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and multi GRAMMY® Award-winning band R.E.M. is one of the most revered bands to emerge from the American underground. Singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry helped originate college rock during the post-punk scene of the 80s. The Athens, GA-based group toured relentlessly for the first decade of their career, refining their idiosyncratic blend of brash tunefulness, poetic lyrics, chiming guitars and evocative vocals.
By the early 90s, R.E.M. had become one of the most popular and critically acclaimed bands in the world. With an extraordinary three-decade-long run of creative vitality, R.E.M. have established a powerful legacy as one of the most enduring and essential rock bands in popular music history.
25th-anniversary edition of R.E.M.’s tenth studio album, New Adventures in Hi-Fi. First released in 1996, the album was R.E.M.’s last studio recording with founding member Bill Berry who left amicably the following year. As the band’s fifth collaboration with long-time producer Scott Litt (Green, Out of Time, Automatic for the People and Monster), the album experiments with new sonic textures, filled with cinematic imagery, dissonant notes and haunting effects. The platinum-selling title includes the singles “Electrolite,” “E-Bow the Letter” (featuring Patti Smith) and “Bittersweet Me,” and represents R.E.M.’s longest studio release with a total run time of 65 minutes. New Adventures in Hi-Fi grew to cult status years after its release, with several press retrospectives—and band members themselves—ranking it among the top albums in R.E.M.’s recorded catalogue.
“The sequence of songs and the range of emotions on New Adventures convey a narrative that has all the dynamics and contradictions of life itself.” - Rolling Stone
“…in its multifaceted sprawl, they wound up with one of their best records of the ’90s.” - AllMusic
“…a document of a band at one peak of their powers, summarizing many of the things they did well while also gesturing at previously unexplored places… It’s an album about movement in ways physical and abstract, spiritual and chronological. Those are the albums you take with you, the ones that will continue to reveal something new for years to come.” - Stereogum
“NAIHF is like leaving a Polaroid in an abandoned darkroom – slowly it reveals its secrets and imagery, but never at once, and never completely… NAIHF demonstrates the high watermark of both the band’s songwriting skills and their restless creative spirits.” - Louder Than War
Available on limited remastered 180g vinyl in a replica of the original gatefold LP package, and as a deluxe 2CD/1 blu-ray edition - 3-disc set of the remastered album plus B-sides and rarities in a deluxe folio-style hardcover package with a 56-page book featuring new liner notes from all band members and Scott Litt, plus archival photographs.