I’m leaping over four albums now — Life’s Rich Pageant, Document, Green and Out of Time — to reach my second-favorite R.E.M. record, Automatic for the People.
The band was huge by this point. They had big hits with ‘The One I Love’ and ‘Stand’ but then reached new heights with the unexpected blockbuster ‘Losing My Religion.’ Who could have predicted that a song about loneliness and uncertainty driven by a mandolin riff would top the charts?
So there was a lot of interest in how R.E.M. would follow up the smash success of Out of Time, and what they did was release an instant classic.
To say Vicky Cristina Barcelona is Woody Allen’s best film in years is damning it with faint praise. His record has been so spotty of late (I’m not a fan of the overrated Match Point) that a minor success winds up as a Golden Globe winner for Best Comedy.
‘Maps and Legends’ is the first R.E.M. song that I remember experiencing. The year was 1988 and I was a sophomore in high school. My sister had discovered R.E.M. in college, I guess, and was obsessed with the song ‘Green Grow the Rushes’ on their third album, Fables of the Reconstruction. She has always been one to focus in on a single song and play the hell out of it (currently, it’s Vampire Weekend’s ‘
For my second single-band theme week (actually fourth, counting the two Beatles weeks I did several months ago) I am turning to another of my very favorite groups, R.E.M.
So the big news this Grammy night is that Rihanna and boyfriend Chris Brown both pulled out of their performances at the last minute because he (allegedly) beat her up in a car earlier today. She called the cops and they’re currently looking for him.
Meet Me In Montauk 