Artist	Song
The Velvet Underground & Nico	I'll Be Your Mirror
from The Velvet Underground & Nico (1996)
Patti Smith	Gloria
from Horses (1996)
Big Star	September Gurls
from #1 Record Radio City (Bonus Track Version) (2009)
The Byrds	Eight Miles High
from The Byrds: 20 Essential Tracks from the Box Set (1992)
Bob Dylan	Subterranean Homesick Blues
from The Essential Bob Dylan (2000)
The Beach Boys	I Wanna Pick You Up
from 15 Big Ones / Love You (2000)
The Monkees	Last Train to Clarksville
from The Best of the Monkees (2003)
The Troggs	Love Is All Around
from The Best of The Troggs (1994)
New York Dolls	Trash
from New York Dolls (1987)
The Stooges	I Wanna Be Your Dog (Remastered)
from The Stooges (2005)
Television	See No Evil
from Marquee Moon (2005)
Wire	Three Girl Rhumba
from Pink Flag (Remastered) (2009)
The Vibrators	Baby Baby
from The Best of the Vibrators (1999)
Flamin' Groovies	Shake Some Action
from Groovies Greatest Grooves (2008)
David Essex	Rock On
from Rock On (1989)
Johnny Cash	Hey Porter
from Now Here's Johnny Cash (1960)
Jack Kerouac	The Subterraneans
from Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation (1997)
Syd Barrett	Dark Globe
from The Madcap Laughs (2003)
The Soft Boys	Wading Through a Ventilator
from Oh No It's More from Raw (1999)
Moby Grape	Omaha
from Listen My Friends! The Best of Moby Grape (2007)
Nazareth	Love Hurts
from Hair of the Dog (1984)
Neil Diamond	I Am...I Said
from The Neil Diamond Collection (1999)
Nick Drake	Pink Moon
from Way to Blue: An Introduction to Nick Drake (2003)
Richard & Linda Thompson	Wall of Death
from Shoot Out the Lights (2006)
Steeleye Span	Hard Times of Old England
from All Around My Hat (2005)

Comment:

The music-fanatic mentality that drove R.E.M.’s members to haunt record stores primed them to reinvent American rock in their image. Guitarist Peter Buck has said he “hardly ever listened” to the Byrds and that Roger McGuinn was “a big influence.” So which is it? The jangly psychedelifolk of “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” might’ve been thousands of miles and two decades removed from [i]Murmur[/i], but it's as close as a heartbeat. With Nico’s spider-web contralto casting a doomed-doll shadow, the Velvet Underground’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror” rakes across American pop’s dark underbelly, laying bare what made them the one band [i]everyone[/i] in R.E.M. revered. And leave it to Mr. Stipe himself to get the final word in on his influences: “I bought Patti Smith's [i]Horses[/i] the day it came out, stayed up all night listening to it on headphones, ate a bowl of cherries, and threw up. I decided then that I was going to start a band.” [i]Sans[/i] cherries, here’s Smith’s stream-of-consciousness punk makeover of Van Morrison’s stone-cold classic “Gloria: In Excelsis Deo.” From the Monkees to Nick Drake, we’ve got all the sounds that transformed a disparate bunch of 20-somethings into the band that launched the alt-rock revolution.

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