Unlike with Accelerate, I never worked to convince myself that I liked Collapse more than I actually did. I did (and do) like it a good bit, but I often skip maybe a third of the songs. That said, I could listen to Discoverer and Uberlin any and every day, and Alligator always makes me smile.

Indeed!

Ultimately, I really like the first two songs and a couple of others, actively dislike two songs (Mr Richards and, especially, Hollow Man), and kinda sorta like the rest.

At the time, I was pretty smitten with it. In hindsight, it was kind of The Force Awakens version of REM--shiny, energetic, and sort of a re-"telling" of earlier REM stories. As with that movie, I don't dislike the album now, but it seems like a product of its time.

When it was released, I loved or at least liked about 2/3 of it and actively disliked the other 1/3. I never really stopped listening to it, though, and at least a couple of tunes that I disliked then (Aftermath, Ascent of Man) are favorites now.