Out of Time at 30

Rolling Stone, which I guess is still a thing, is celebrating the 30-year anniversary of REM's Out of Time, which, if I recall correctly, and I believe I do, was played every second of every day on every radio throughout that year. It's okay but nowhere NEAR my favorite REM album, and I think this statement is certifiably insane:

Out of Time kicked off their glorious four-album Nineties run, which ended up crushing anything they’d done in the Eighties.

At first I worried me objecting to this just made me sound like an old man, but a quick Google tells me that Rob Sheffield is six years older than me and should fucking know better. It's a good album, but the only REM superslice of mine from it is Belong. I last did an REM Top 10 in 2009, and I think it pretty much is the same today:

Live and How to Live It
Superman
Finest Worksong
Radio Free Europe
Moral Kiosk
Don't Go Back to Rockville
Begin the Begin
I Believe
Belong
Fall On Me

But they claim it to have "invented the 90s" (without really laying out what that means in any real way) and while I don't know about that (I've always begrudgingly said Pavement's Slanted & Enchanted did that for me) it's refreshing to hear someone say something like that without just lazily falling back on Nirvana.

AND WHY WAS MTV'S UNPLUGGED DISCONTINUED!?!?!?!!?!