R.E.M. – In Time: The Best Of R.E.M. 1988-2003

Very nice pressing. Very quiet. Although, there's a slight vocal distortion on few songs. Or it appears to me so. There are a few scratch like sounds on B1 on my album, but not that malign. BUTTTTTTT! The record inlays are twice dozen crap ! Just simple thin white paper with a hole in the middle, so I had trouble pushing the records out. At the end I cut the paper sideways to pull the records out without damaging them (the paper sleeves are death for the records). I think that butchers wrap pork chops more carefully than the producers did this records ! Shame on you ! What happened to simple antistatic plastic inlays ? It annoys me greatly. Is it enviroment ? Think twice. The record comes wrapped in sealed nylon that has to be broken and tossed into garbage if you want to use the records. If the records were placed into them the antistatics would be there forever protecting the records, not in the garbage bin !!!

Too bad others can't follow the lead of this pressing.. Clean, sounds great and the thick poly sleeves? What?!? Wicked!

I just purchased this from a Salvo's shop for $2... bargain!!!. But upon looking at my comprehensive iTunes catalogue, I have noticed a few big hits missing from this compilation. In particular Bang And Blame and Shiny Happy People..... WHY?????. Not happy about these two hits missing, as these tracks are the original hits featured on compilations from the early to mid 90's and the levels of those 80's and 90's compilation CD's (and CD's in general) are VERY low compared to the mastering levels of 2000's onwards.

Nice pressing. Quiet, no surface noise, great sound. Easy to recommend.

Utterly pointless best of collection, especially as it begins in 1988 (for obvious reason). To be honest, I could make a far better REM collection/best of than this, oh wait, I have (and of the 20 songs I chose, only 6 feature here).

I've got a copy of this pressing (same matrix, same catalog number, same place of manufacture) but it has the same misprint as this Australian copy, with the year on both spines misprinted as "1998-2003" as opposed to the correct "1988-2003". I'd imagine this misprint is fairly common – possibly the first print run? (If it helps, the disc mother/stamper ID is M1S1, although I bought it used so I can't 100% guarantee it came like this.) I don't see a separate entry on Discogs apart from that Australian edition with the alternate catalog number. How many other people have this misprint, and how many other territories had the misprint as well?

In general I don’t hold out much hope for compilations given they are stitched together for the casual listener rather than the collector/audiophile. This however is the exception, a sonic mark. Nice gatefold and booklet with commentary on each songs creation is a nice touch.

Would have loved to hear what Chris Bellman could have done with the mastering on this. Unfortunately, this is very hit or miss from song to song on sound quality, which is sometimes typical of songs thrown together for a greatest hits record. The sound on this can become very fatiguing to your ears especially at above average volume. Then songs like “E-Bow The Letter,” “Daysleeper,” “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite,” and “Electrolite” come on that sound excellent. Would have been nice to have it work out to get many of the classic songs that are missing put on this compilation too. Nice that it comes in a gatefold and poly-lined inner sleeves. Sound quality ranges from 3.0 to 4.5 on this.

Oooph yeah..rough amount of surface noise even after a clean and with the nicer sleeves. Less noticeable when the music is going but still very present.

Sound isn't good a lot of pops, sounds flat , cd sounds better