I used to think Life's Rich Pageant was my favorite REM record, but over the years, this is the one that I play the most. That said – the demos on this deluxe version are for super-fans only. THAT said, the version of Bandwagon on Dead Letter Office is the one you really want.

One of the first CD's I ever bought and could very well be my favorite R.E.M. album. Hard to say. There are so many great ones.

The iTunes review of this above is extremely accurate.

Unpretentiousness and straight forward.

Back in the pre-mp3 era, the only way I could sample R.E.M.'s early work was through the international IRS compilation "The Best of R.E.M." since none of the IRS albums were sold in my country (and I doubt they are even now). I eventually moved to the U.S. and snapped up all the albums one by one, but looking back at that cassette tape compilation I can say that the three songs off Fables were the ones that stood out above the rest. If Automatic for the People was their masterpiece from the Warner Bros. years then Fables is R.E.M.'s masterpiece from the IRS era. Unlike Reckoning or Document, which seem to lose momentum and become somewhat boring with the last few songs, Fables is solid all the way through to the end. Perhaps not as immediately accessible as Document or Lifes Rich Pageant, but it can still work as an introduction to early R.E.M. with melodic ballads like Maps and Legends, Driver 8 and Green Grow the Rushes and solid rockers like Life and How to Live it. For established fans, the bonus tracks are wonderful and it's interesting to see the inner workings of some of the songs after they're stripped of those "murky" extra layers.