About the band: R.E.M. were an American rock band, formed in 1980. After a string of hits and fifteen studio albums, the band broke up amicably in 2011. They sold more than 90 million records worldwide making them one of the world's best-selling music artists. R.E.M. currently have one song in my list of about 200 best pop/rock songs of all time.
About the song: I've been high is a track from the 2002 album Reveal. It is a delicate atmospheric ballad covered in a blanket of sleepy synthesizers. It has been cited as an example of Radiohead's influence on R.E.M. The greatest thing about this song is Stipe's vocal: it's deep, dark, sexy, yet also intimately delicate and gentle. It 's breathtaking when he switches to his lilting falsetto in the chorus singing, "I've been high, I've climbed so high, but life sometimes, it washes over me". Run time 3:26.
