R.E.M. Album Recommendations

The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

R.E.M.

[#] Automatic for the People (1992)

Death is the great sleep, after all.

Reviewed July 16, 2020

(This is an album that was previously covered on the Rediscovering! Click the link in the table to read my first impressions, or read on for how they might have changed.)

I cannot begin to tell you why Automatic for the People is so beloved. Early R.E.M.—no, pretty much every IRS-era R.E.M. album—delights in songs that sound completely timeless. Mike Mills' background vocals, the dark, melodic bass, the chiming guitars that felt more creaky and eerie than bright, the oblique lyrics that painted with words and told of small town Southern tales, environmental concerns, the doldrums of travel, and an inability to communicate clearly all spoke to this strangely mystical-yet-buoyant feeling that gets completely tossed out the window circa Automatic. Automatic is so dull, you wonder if they just happened to fluke it for seven records straight. (Monster and New Adventures prove otherwise, thankfully, but that just makes this one all the more perplexing.)

One by one, each song fails to develop, fails to go anywhere, fails to feature a contrasting part that gives the song any movement whatsoever. Flat verses, occasionally cool refrains ("Drive", "Sweetness Follows"). Everything is steeped in this suffocating, deathly boring mourning and maturity, leading to even the rockers like "Man on the Moon" feeling overly serious and leaden. None of R.E.M.'s sonic trademarks are present. It's competent! It's not a complete trainwreck. It just sounds like a band that cast off everything that was interesting about it, not even in the pursuit of success, just because, and not only managed hits, managed to make everyone's favorite R.E.M. record in the process. At least "Shiny Happy People" was stupid fun—"Everybody Hurts" wants to deliver you a message while being a godawful fruity pop song. I'm good, Michael.

Essential:	"Drive", "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1", "Sweetness Follows"
Quintessential:	"Monty Got a Raw Deal"
Non-Essential:	"Everybody Hurts"
Rating:
Further listening:	Automatic for the People's Rediscovering entry

[#] Murmur (1983)

Oblique autumnal singalongs.

Reviewed September 9, 2024

If you want a taste of just how (pardon the pun) out of time Murmur really is, look into the version of "Catapult" I.R.S. coaxed R.E.M. into doing with famed New Order producer Stephen Hague. Far from a trainwreck (it's a nicely performed rendition that accentuates their way with a pop refrain), what makes it ice water to the face is how locked in time it truly is. The dungeons of digital reverb and the call-and-response synth stabs put it square in the early 80s—anathema to everything great about R.E.M. at that point. Thankfully, both the band and I.R.S. opted to give the job to Chronic Town producer Mitch Easter, giving us the much more understated, mysterious, timeless, and brilliantly dramatic Murmur instead.

Every member of R.E.M. contributes to Murmur's sound in a big way. Mike Mills' basslines are darkly melodic, acting as a second voice (when Mike isn't filling that himself) between Michael Stipe's famed introverted croons and evocative lyrics about radio, boats, pilgrimages, empty mouths, conversation fear, and dreams of Elysian. Peter Buck's brightly intricate guitar lines mix chiming arpeggios and chords with not a solo in sight, and Bill Berry's drumming is restless, his drum sound being warmly dull and heavy on the toms. Paired with the organic, rustic production, neither bone dry like the 70s before it, Pet Shop Boys shiny like the music around it, or intentionally ragged like the 90s that followed it, and to this day, R.E.M. has never made a record that sounds anything like this one, nor is as good as this one.