Simon & Garfunkel’s third album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, was recorded and released in 1966, the same year that Sounds of Silence introduced their sound to a large audience.
The new album, their third, was even more successful than its predecessor, achieving triple platinum status and sending three singles up the charts.
One was the duo’s rendition of the classic folk tune ‘Scarborough Fair,’ blended with a counter melody inspired by Simon’s solo track ‘The Side of a Hill.’
R.E.M.’s last album as a quartet — and therefore the last “true” R.E.M. album — was 1996’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
It would be easy to dismiss the band’s subsequent output as a pale reflection on its first ten albums, but that’s a bit too easy. The five albums R.E.M. recorded after Bill Berry’s departure include some memorable work. Most notably, 1998’s Up, the band’s first record as a trio, is a rich and resonant album.
At the time of Up‘s release, Berry made the very gracious statement that he left the band only to see them record their best album yet. An exaggeration, perhaps, but certainly a sign that his was an amicable departure.
Out of Time was an unlikely hit album, but its follow-up was even more of a surprise. 1992’s Automatic For the People is a somber, murky meditation on death that happened to go quadruple platinum.
It’s a testament to R.E.M.’s integrity that their two most commercially popular albums were also two of their more experimental.
Automatic For the People is a particularly gorgeous record, all cellos and distorted bass lines, Stipe’s mumbled vocals processed into a low grumble on some tracks and allowed to soar on others. I rank this album just below Fables of the Reconstruction as the band’s best work.
R.E.M.’s Out of Time was released in 1991, and marked the band’s giant leap into the mainstream. First single ‘Losing My Religion’ became an unlikely smash, perhaps the first song featuring lead mandolin to reach Billboard’s top five. Guitarist Peter Buck was learning to play the mandolin for the first time when he stumbled upon the riff that would become ‘Losing My Religion.’
Out of Time is an odd mix of some of the best music the band ever recorded (‘Country Feedback,’ ‘Losing My Religion,’ today’s SOTD) and some of the worst (‘Radio Song,’ ‘Shiny Happy People‘).
Stop two on the R.E.M. nostalgia tour brings us to 1988’s Green, the band’s first album with Warner Bros. This record went double platinum and marks the beginning of R.E.M.’s commercial breakthrough.
Unfortunately, that breakthrough came courtesy of ‘Stand,’ one of the lamest R.E.M. songs. Sad that we live in a world where nobody is familiar with ‘(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville‘ but everybody can sing along to ‘Stand.’
But Green features some quality material, including the sublime ‘World Leader Pretend‘ and today’s beautifully melancholy track.
Meet Me In Montauk 