Fans of R.E.M. enjoy arguing over which album was the band's true shark-jump, but 1987's Document was inarguably the end of a groundbreaking era. It was the Athens band's fifth and last album for indie label I.R.S., as well as their inevitable leap from mumbled jangle-rock into full-blown arena power. For all its bigness, however, robust radio staples like "Finest Worksong" and "The One I Love" still broadcast the band's legendary ambiguity, while "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" remains an archetype of '80s progressive college rock. Looking back, this is truly a best-of-both-worlds record, the little-band-that-could growing into its new clothes. Reissued in a new two-disc set, Document sounds larger than ever, and includes a live show from 1987 in Utrecht, Holland — one of the first of many stadium-sized conquests the band would make over the next two-plus decades.
