R.E.M.’s ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It’ Re-Enters The Charts

It comes as no surprise that R.E.M.’s apocalyptic ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ has re-entered the charts, nearly 33 years after it was first unleashed to the airwaves.

Adding some much-needed levity (or just confirming everyone’s fears) amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the 1987 single from the Athens, GA alt.rockers is slowly climbing up the iTunes Top 100 chart, and currently sits at No.72, according to Chart Data earlier this morning.

The single, which originally reached No.69 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987, and No.39 in the UK when it was re-released four years later, is currently beating out Lizzo’s ‘Good As Hell’, Luke Bryan’s ‘What She Wants Tonight’ and Taylor Swift’s ‘The Man’.

‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ was inspired by an unlikely source – a dream. In a 1992 interview with Q magazine, R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe shared that, “There’s a part in ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It’ that came from a dream where I was at Lester Bangs’ birthday party and I was the only person there whose initials weren’t L.B. So there was Lenny Bruce, Leonid Brezhnev, Leonard Bernstein…That ended up in the song along with a lot of stuff I’d seen when I was flipping TV channels. It’s a collection of streams of consciousness.”

R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” has re-entered the top 100 on US iTunes.

— chart data (@chartdata) March 13, 2020

The song, which was the second single off R.E.M.’s fifth studio album, Document, remains one of the band’s most memorable tunes, and, will likely be in the world’s collective thoughts for some time to come.

Last year marked a big anniversary for the band, as they celebrated the 25th anniversary of Monster with a deluxe reissue. Meanwhile Stipe started 2020 with new solo material including ‘Drive to the Ocean’ and ‘Your Capricious Soul’.

Listen to the best of R.E.M. on Apple Music or Spotify.

Format: UK English