R.E.M.? *tries to think of similarly-styled bands (I'm thinking 'College Rock' here, so it's gonna get really varied)*
Well, these are what I can think of, and they range from harder than R.E.M. to soft:
Concrete Blonde (especially 'cause their name was suggested by Michael Stipe and Peter Buck plays on their 'Bloodletting' album)
The Replacements
Sugar (a side project of Hüsker Dü)
Bob Mould (Sugar's lead singer)
Peter Murphy (former lead singer of Bauhaus; check out the 'Love Hysteria' and 'Deep' albums)
Kate Bush (especially the song 'Running Up That Hill')
Afghan Whigs
Angie Aparo
B'z (a Japanese band; I recommend the songs 'Easy Come, Easy Go!' and 'Never Let You Go' first and foremost)
The Turnpike Band [a local band from Orlando; their website (
http://www.turnpikerocks.com/) has both of their albums available for download in MP3 format@128kbps]
Comsat Angels (the singles 'Independence Day', 'Day One', and 'You Move Me' especially)
The Jayhawks
Guided By Voices (their song 'Hold On Hope' was featured in an episode of 'Scrubs')
The Smithereens
Echo and the Bunnymen
Dramarama (the song 'Anything, Anything' is really good)
The Jesus and Mary Chain
New Order
Monaco (a side project of New Order; check out the song 'What Do You Want From Me?')
They Might Be Giants
The Smiths
Hoodoo Gurus
Depeche Mode
The Pixies
10,000 Maniacs
Edwyn Collins
The Rembrandts
Flesh For Lulu
All About Eve
Folk Implosion
Soul Asylum
Fountains Of Wayne
Garbage
Lennon Murphy (the song 'My Beautiful' is excellent)
Leona Naess
Rachael Yamagata
Social Distortion (their later material, since it's more standard rock than punk)
Mr. Big (the songs 'Take Cover' and 'Shine' are really good)
Natalie Merchant
New Radicals
Oasis
Primitive Radio Gods (the song 'Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand' was a hit in 1996)
Duncan Sheik
Dexter Freebish
Well, that's a start.