Losing My Religion/ Rotary Eleven

From a warehouse find, this is a new, unplayed stock copy. Having been a big R.E.M. fan since their 1983 debut ("Radio Free Europe"), and then watching their career unfold... not always in a direction I was thrilled about... I remember being totally astounded to hear this one. Not only was it a magnificent return to their roots musically, but it's a simply superior pop song. Nothing simple about it, but it sounds so simple! And consider this: "Losing My Religion" has no chorus. How do you make a pop song a hit that has no hummable chorus? And yet on the strength of its music and lyrics — totally legible, it's so right-on as a tale of fragile, vulnerable love — "Religion" went on to become the biggest chart hit of the group's career. Deservedly so, and it anchored an album of similarly worthy note. As with most R.E.M. singles, the B side is a previously unreleased, non-LP cut. Dave Marsh included this single in his 1999 addendum to the original list of 1001 greatest singles, published in 1989, and Rolling Stone has it high up on their list, too.