at a glance...

Hometown: Athens, Georgia
Year Formed: 1980

Personnel:
Michael Stipe -vocals
Peter Buck -guitars
Mike Mills -bass, keyboards, backing vocals
Bill Berry -drums

Related Bands:
Tuatara, Hindu Love Gods, Robyn Hitchcock, U2, Patti Smith, Radiohead, Vic Chesnutt, 10,000 Maniacs, KRS-One, Billy Bragg, Drivin' and Cryin', Fleshtones, Grant Lee Buffalo, Patti Smith, Warren Zevon, Neneh Cherry, B-52s, Golden Palominos, Kristin Hersh, Butter 08, Smashing Pumpkins, Oh OK, the Db's, the Troggs.

Notes:
In the wake of punk and new wave, the garage band sound of the Chronic Town EP, released in 1982, was R.E.M.'s first taste of critical worship, something that washed over into 1983 when the band's full length debut Murmur was universally considered the best album of the year. R.E.M. spent the early half of the '80s as a college radio station staple at universities across America, releasing at least one album a year on I.R.S. Records. On the heels of their top-five single "The One I Love," 1987's Document allowed the band to break through to a mainstream audience for the first time. The band's exodus to major label Warner Bros. allowed their unique sound to reach an even bigger audience, as 1989's Green continued garnering critical praise for the band while selling over a million records. The '90s saw R.E.M assume the role of global super-group, as Out Of Time, Automatic For The People, Monster, and New Adventures In Hi-Fi proved. Things briefly came to a halt in 1997, however, as founding member and drummer Bill Berry decided to quit the band after a severe illness. Amid speculation that this meant their demise, the remaining three members decided to keep playing and released their eleventh studio album, Up, in 1998. They finished the decade by writing the musical score for the Andy Kaufman biopic, "Man On The Moon," named after one of their songs.

Several members of R.E.M. have commented since the release of Automatic For The People that it's the band's least cohesive record, and that due to internal fractures following the global breakthrough of Out Of Time, each had done their respective parts without the normal four-man input. It set the stage for a tense, yet hauntingly evocative recording.

Automatic For The People, originally slated to be a punk-rock record, is awash in a sadness that is subtly indelible. With Peter Buck still fiddling with his mandolin from the Out Of Time sessions, Mike Mills using the keyboards more actively, and Bill Berry stepping up on bass more often than before, it's not surprising that Michael Stipe was writing and singing with such melancholy. The ominous death march intro to "Drive," the wistful guitar chord on "Man On The Moon," and the soft reeds on "Find The River" all point to a quieter moment in the R.E.M. timeline.

Conceivably, Automatic was also the result of growing up with Reaganomics, television, middle class, and the lack of a social identity in the shadow of the '60's flower-child parent. "Ignoreland" addresses the alienation and vitriol political campaigning breeds, fear of parental and fraternal death is faced on "Sweetness Follows," and responses to the bleak messages of grunge appear on "Everybody Hurts" and "Drive."

The connecting water images in the denouement of Automatic underscore how acutely insightful this album really is. Among the stream-of-consciousness memories of "Nightswimming," there is mourning for the loss of the exuberance and fearlessness of adolescence. The promise to symbolically keep trying to "Find The River," with its hint of acceptance and growth of spirit optimistically concludes an album of intense opinion, expression, and ultimately, lamentation.

This kind of stirring, emotional statement places R.E.M. a long way away from that Athens garage band who recorded the minimalist Murmur. Automatic For The People doesn't just prove that R.E.M. have stood the test of time, it proves to be R.E.M.'s finest moment.