What's your opinion of their breakup?

A lot of people I talked to were torn apart when they heard the news, but I was actually relieved if anything. Collapse into Now and Accelerate were decent at best, but nothing particularly memorable, or even inspired. Around the Sun was awful, and I haven't heard Up or Reveal in years, but I remember them being extremely underwhelming for the band that wrote "Nightswimming" and "So. Central Rain." They hadn't made a great album since New Adventures in Hi-Fi, so I'd say their time had come.

REM has become one of my favorite bands, for sure. Felt it was time as well. Be nice to see them do an occassional live set, but they were done producing quality original material

Yeah, I was wondering if any of their fans felt that way.

There was some discussion about that in the R.E.M. thread a while back, and they were saying a lot of the same things I did. I think part of why people feel that way is I think many users on this site aren't old enough to have been an R.E.M. fan from the beginning.