Red Mosquito

Vote

It's a testament to how many strong songs there are on document that this is mid album for me. Walk it Back always reminded me of a song that would have been better on an earlier album. Almost all of Collapse into Now consists of callbacks to earlier songs, but they usually hold up. Not so much here. It's a decent song. I don't skip it, but in a stacked catalog there aren't many songs it is superior to.

WttO

This is a rather weak matchup for me.
Welcome to the Occupation is ok, it always felt like a Fables song minus the charm of that album.
Walk it Back is one of the many songs on Collapse that are pretty unremarkable but nice enough to liaten to, it gets my vote here.

I think I'd grant this to Occupation, with some hesitation. Walk it Back features a really beautiful vocal from Stipe, and sounds extremely warm and welcoming. Occupation's one of those dime-a-dozen R.E.M. 80s pop songs that they could fire at will; they were mostly outstanding.

Doing this after the PJ tournament really highlights the true marvel of what R.E.M. was able to do; they were really good for pretty much the entirety of their career. That's not meant to throw stones at PJ; most bands I think would have a measurable dip in quality into lesser work after some period of time in their career. Granted, R.E.M. wasn't making Automatic-esque masterpieces in the final years but they still writing great songs.

I adore "Occupation" -- it's one of those songs that just thoroughly sucks me into the genius of REM, an infectious melody being pushed along by big, sweeping open chords and urgent, suspenseful harmonies. I'd rate it among my favorite IRS tracks. I could take or leave "Walk It Back." Easy vote here.