R.E.M. is breaking up.

You've probably seen it in the news already, but if not, here is reasonable coverage of the who, what, where, and why.
OK, now for some not-just-a-link actual content.  My take on it?  Twenty five years too late.  They had a great run in the early to mid-80's, a handful of good songs after that, and one last, final, good album, Collapse into Now (reviewed here).  The time couldn't be better for a recap of R.E.M.'s major works.

• Chronic Town (EP), 1982.  An early glint of genius.  Has Gardening at Night on it, that song alone makes the entire band worthwhile.
• Murmur, 1983.  Yes, more like this please!
• Reckoning, 1984.  A second helping from the same kitchen where Murmur was cooked.  Good stuff.
• Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985.  Deep Southern-fried but somehow not country-fied.  Damn near miraculous.
• Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986.  Can they get any better?  As it turns out, no.
• And handful of outtake and compilation albums, like little core samples from their 1979-1987 run of brilliance.  

After that, their albums were a morass of drawn-out weepy tunes, sporting maybe one or two songs that gave glimmers of hope that R.E.M. would rise again.  But it never quite happened.  Collapse into Now, released just last spring, showed them back in their earlier good form, but the fire was cooler, mellowed by time and age.  And now the fire is out.  Ah well, a year ago I'd have said that the fire went out in '87.  I am glad that they managed to put out one more good disk before it was all over.