Revisiting Our 40 Favorite REM Songs on the 40th Anniversary of Their First Show Ever

40 years ago - on April 5, 1980 - a band with no name took the stage at the former St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Athens, Ga to play their first show ever at at a friend's birthday party. Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Bill Berry and Mike Mills would later go on to play hundreds more shows under the name REM.

Michael Stipe's thoughts on the show (that featured covers of the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen, the Monkees' (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone and Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner) "It was really fun [but] I don't remember the last half of it."

Bill Berry recalls being "scared sh*tless"

Now - 40 years and 15 studio albums, four live albums, 14 compilation albums, one remix album, one soundtrack album, 12 video albums, seven extended plays, 63 singles, and 77 music videos later - we take a look at our 40 favorite REM songs.

We tried to rank them. - but couldn't agree - so we broke them down into our top 10 and the other 30 ( in alphabetical order)

RNR's Top 10 REM Songs