Press "Enter" to skip to content

Making Progress: The Nation’s Coronavirus Researchers Have Finally Finished Their Definitive Rankings Of All The R.E.M. Albums And Now They’re Ready To Start Developing A COVID Vaccine

A group of doctors with face masks looking at camera, corona virus concept.

People around the world are praying for an end to the coronavirus pandemic, and at this point, a vaccine appears to be our only hope. Thankfully, a major announcement was made today that makes the possibility of a vaccine much more likely: The nation’s coronavirus researchers have completed their definitive rankings of all of the R.E.M. albums and can now finally start focusing their energy on bringing a vaccine to market.

Amazing! It’s about time they got started on this.

If the spirited debate and intense research that the nation’s hardworking virologists, chemists, and physicians put into ranking R.E.M. albums over the past 7 months is any indication, this virus better be prepared to get its ass kicked. There’s no doubt that since these experts have settled their differences on exactly where R.E.M.’s 2004 Around the Sun should fall in their rankings of R.E.M.’s entire studio LP discography, they’re ready to roll up their sleeves and go full-bore at destroying this virus for good.

“Do I personally agree with putting Document in the number 4 position? No,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci. “But when you have thousands of virologists and biologists and chemists and all of these people with different specialties coming together to rank all 15 of R.E.M.’s studio albums, you’re going to find some differences in opinion. The important thing here is that we were able to work together over the past nine months to get a solid ranking that we could publish on our rateyourmusic.com page and now we can move on to fighting back against this horrible disease through the development of a vaccine.”

Thank God. Hope has finally arrived!

While this announcement means there is an end in sight, don’t get your hopes up that a vaccine will be available anytime soon. It took the nation’s coronavirus researchers many months just to rank all 15 albums from the alt-rock pioneers, including a four-month argument over whether 1983’s Murmur or 1992’s Automatic For The People deserved the top spot (they eventually chose Murmur), so it’s important to remember that good science takes time. But the fact that every coronavirus researcher out there just switched gears from evaluating the entirety of R.E.M.’s studio output to developing a coronavirus vaccine is still reason to jump for joy. We can’t to see what these amazing researchers will accomplish now that they’re getting started on developing a COVID vaccine! Medical progress FTW!