The music world was kind of shocked when R.E.M. announced their breakup. (We even devoted a whole Reissue Theory to their 1987 B-sides compilation Dead Letter Office.) It's certainly interesting timing, then, that the band has one last act of catalogue material before they split: a double-disc compilation coming in November.

Named after a quippy assessment of the band by its own guitarist, Peter Buck, Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011 is the first set from the band to span their career in full - both their heady, pioneering college-rock days on I.R.S. Records as well as their move to further international acclaim on Warner Bros. Naturally, it also includes three new tracks: a new single, the aptly-titled "We All Go Back to Where We Belong" (available to download October 18) and two additional tracks from the sessions to the band's latest album, this year's Collapse Into Now.

It's easy to be cynical about the timing of this release, coming less than a week after the band's split. But the ability to collect the band's full greatest hits in one spot is actually rather neat. The only other Warner compilation on the market is 2003's In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003, while the I.R.S. era has been anthologized to death, most recently with 2006's And I Feel Fine...The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987. (Both sets, in fact, had their own deluxe editions with various rarities here and there.) The song selection is certainly arguable (as it was when we did our own Reissue Theory on a full R.E.M. hits set earlier this year), but the 40 songs herein aren't a terrible place to start.

The package is available November 15 and can be ordered (along with the track list) after the jump.

R.E.M., Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011 (Warner Bros. 529088-2, 2011)

Disc 1

1. Gardening At Night
2. Radio Free Europe
3. Talk About the Passion
4. Sitting Still
5. So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)
6. (Don't Go Back to) Rockville
7. Driver 8
8. Life and How to Live It
9. Begin the Begin
10. Fall on Me
11. Finest Worksong
12. It's the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)
13. The One I Love
14. Stand
15. Pop Song 89
16. Get Up
17. Orange Crush
18. Losing My Religion
19. Country Feedback
20. Shiny Happy People

Disc 2

1. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
2. Everybody Hurts
3. Man on the Moon
4. Nightswimming
5. What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
6. New Test Leper
7. Electrolite
8. At My Most Beautiful
9. The Great Beyond
10. Imitation of Life
11. Bad Day
12. Leaving New York
13. Living Well is the Best Revenge
14. Supernatural Superserious
15. ÜBerlin
16. Oh My Heart
17. Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
18. A Month of Saturdays
19. We All Go Back to Where We Belong
20. Hallelujah

Disc 1, Track 1 from Chronic Town (I.R.S., 1982)
Disc 1, Tracks 2-4 from Murmur (I.R.S., 1983)
Disc 1, Tracks 5-6 from Reckoning (I.R.S., 1984)
Disc 1, Tracks 7-8 from Fables of the Reconstruction (I.R.S., 1985)
Disc 1, Tracks 9-10 from Lifes Rich Pageant (I.R.S., 1986)
Disc 1, Tracks 11-13 from Document (I.R.S., 1987)
Disc 1, Tracks 14-17 from Green (Warner Bros., 1988)
Disc 1, Tracks 18-20 from Out of Time (Warner Bros., 1991)
Disc 2, Tracks 1-4 from Automatic for the People (Warner Bros., 1992)
Disc 2, Track 5 from Monster (Warner Bros., 1994)
Disc 2, Tracks 6-7 from New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros., 1996)
Disc 2, Track 8 from Up (Warner Bros., 1998)
Disc 2, Track 9 from Man on the Moon: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Warner Bros., 1999)
Disc 2, Track 10 from Reveal (Warner Bros., 2001)
Disc 2, Track 11 from In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 (Warner Bros., 2003)
Disc 2, Track 12 from Around the Sun (Warner Bros., 2004)
Disc 2, Tracks 13-14 from Accelerate (Warner Bros., 2008)
Disc 2, Tracks 15-17 from Collapse Into Now (Warner Bros., 2011)
Disc 2, Tracks 18-20 are new tracks