Dead Letter Office

Dead Letter Office is R.E.M.'s collection of rarities and B-sides, released on 27 April 1987 through I.R.S. Records. It gathers outtakes and flipsides recorded from before Murmur up to Lifes Rich Pageant, much of it first issued as B-sides to their singles internationally. Many tracks are cover versions, which shows how wide the band's tastes ran: three Velvet Underground songs, Aerosmith's "Toys in the Attic", Roger Miller's "King of the Road" and "Crazy" by fellow Athens band Pylon.

It arrived just four months before Document, and Peter Buck worried it would look like a bid to cash in. He wrote wry, self-deprecating liner notes for the songs, one of them apologetic. The original vinyl and cassette had 15 songs, but the CD added the five tracks from the 1982 Chronic Town EP, which made it the only way to hear that EP on disc until The Originals box set.