I 1st read R.E.M. in 1986, a song tacked on to the tip of a demos assortment of a Eugene, Oregon, band that my uncle, then at school at U of O, sent to me for Christmas. The song was called "Superman," a bit of meticulously crafted bubblegum which was so straightforward and sincere and amusing that my whole nascent library of cassettes (chiefly: Ya