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In the weekend, I posted a piece about the best sounds that 1985 had to offer. I received some feedback about the prevalence of pop and lack of alternative music. My defence is that I was very young then and the mid-eighties were a pop peak. R.E.M.’s legacy is assured in alt rock’s pantheon, but in 1985 they were still making the crossover from college rock, which you can hear in the blue-eyed soul of their single ‘Can’t Get There From Here’. It features on their album Fables Of The Reconstruction and does not sound out of place next to the output Haircut 100 a few years earlier. Yes, that’s right; although Michael Stipe’s voice is Michael Stipe’s voice.