Tie Another One to your Back.

For the R.E.M. fans among us, Stereogum has compiled Drive XV, an Automatic for the People tribute album to commemorate that record's fifteenth anniversary. (The album's site also contains thoughts on the songs by Mike Mills and, as a special treat, an essay, Sweetness Followed, by Matthew Perpetua of Fluxblog and Pop Songs '07.) AftP came out the fall of my senior year in high school and, as I said in my top 50 REM songs post of a few years back, it hasn't aged with me as well as I'd hoped. (In fact, I'd probably put both Monster and Up above it these days.) Still, while "Man on the Moon" and "Everybody Hurts" may be well beyond played out (and "Nightswimming" might be getting there), the mournful record also features "Drive" (still an amazing video), "Sweetness Follows," and "Monty Got a Raw Deal," all minor-key dirges which resonate now as they did then. In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing what the bands here came up with.