This was basically R.E.M.’s London Calling — the album on which they did what they did better than anyone else would ever do it, along with some things that no one else ever did before or since. The jangling guitar arpeggiations are still there, but now they’re coupled with sturdier, crunchier, more rockish sounds. The politics are getting more explicit, but their expression is still deeply and wonderfully weird. “Fall On Me” is swooningly gorgeous; “Begin the Begin” rocks out. And “Swan Swan H” anticipates the steampunk movement by a decade or so. Not only is this R.E.M.’s best album; it’s one of the best albums of the 1980s.