Anniversary editions live or die on whether the vault material actually matters, and R.E.M. have chosen a preview that does. A previously unreleased live version of “The Great Beyond,” recorded for Radio France in Paris on May 7, 2001, is out now, per the release, previewing The Black Sessions Revealed, a 17-song live set arriving November 20 as part of Reveal (25th Anniversary Edition) on Craft Recordings.
The choice of song is doing a lot of quiet work. Per the release, “The Great Beyond” — originally from the Man on the Moon soundtrack — was R.E.M.’s highest-charting UK single, reaching No. 3. That makes the Paris performance more than a curio for completists. It is a document of the band, at the start of the Reveal era, playing the biggest British hit of their career in front of a French radio audience, and it has sat unreleased for a quarter of a century.
What the Anniversary Edition Actually Contains
Per the release, the edition’s second disc is the Black Sessions themselves, so the live material is not a token bonus tucked behind the album — it is a full second pillar of the package. Alongside it, per the release, comes a Blu-ray carrying hi-res and 5.1 audio, the album’s three videos and the original EPK.
That structure matters. The live disc gives listeners a complete performance rather than a handful of stray tracks, and the Blu-ray gathers the visual record in one place — a proper time capsule of 2001, with Reveal new and the band still a formidable live proposition.
Why a Radio Session Still Counts
There is a particular honesty to a radio session recording. No arena reverb to hide behind, no crowd noise doing the emotional work for the band — just the playing, the singing and the room. A 17-song set preserved that way, per the release, is the closest thing this anniversary can offer to being in Paris that May night, and “The Great Beyond” is the ideal invitation into it precisely because casual fans know it as well as the faithful do.
Per the release, stream and preorder links for the edition are available now — mentioned here by name, as the release directs. If your copy of Reveal has been sitting on the shelf since 2001, this is the version designed to pull it back into rotation, and if you came to the band later, the Black Sessions may be the most human entry point of all.
The 247 Take — R.E.M. never needed rescuing, but they did deserve editions this careful. Leading with a No. 3 single played live in Paris, then backing it with a full 17-song set, is how you honor a catalogue — by letting the band play, not just remastering the past.
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Sources: Sacks & Co. press release
