Tag Archives: r.e.m.

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Song of the Day #684: ‘I Don’t Sleep, I Dream’ – R.E.M.

Automatic For the People was one of the hardest of hard acts to follow, so when R.E.M. released Monster two years later, in 1994, they went in a completely different direction.

Here was the “hard” album they’d been talking about recording for years, and then some. The acoustic flavors of Out of Time and Automatic For the People were replaced by distorted, grungy guitars and processed vocals.

Because of the marked contrast from its classic predecessor, it’s tempting to look at Monster as a let-down for the band — in fact, I was prepared to describe it as one of their more underrated albums — but the truth is it was a big hit commercially and received very good reviews.

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Song of the Day #683: ‘Star Me Kitten’ – R.E.M.

R.E.M. unquestionably reached their commercial peak with Out of Time, but I’d argue that they reached their artistic pinnacle on their following album, 1992’s Automatic For the People.

Though the band initially planned to follow Out of Time with an album of hard rockers, they instead wound up producing a collection of dark, moody songs about death and uncertainty. This is a fine example of a collective artistic muse at work… despite their intentions, the music on Automatic For the People simply found its way out.

‘Ignoreland’ is the one broadly up-tempo song on the album and, not coincidentally, it’s the worst track here. In fact, though I like the song well enough, I’d say it’s pretty much the one thing that keeps this album from being perfect.

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Song of the Day #682: ‘Country Feedback’ – R.E.M.

Three years after the success of Green, R.E.M. became superstars with the release of 1991’s Out of Time. Propelled by the runaway success of unlikely single ‘Losing My Religion’ (how many #1 songs feature a lead mandolin?) the album went quadruple platinum in the U.S.

[Note: Sorry, mom, but ‘Losing My Religion’ isn’t my featured song from this album… I’ll post it someday soon just for you.]

Out of Time would prove to be R.E.M.’s pinnacle commercially, if not creatively. The band’s trajectory had been on the rise since their debut and this album helped them punch through the stratosphere. It also marked an interesting turning point for R.E.M.’s sound.

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Song of the Day #681: ‘World Leader Pretend’ – R.E.M.

I mentioned last week that Fables of the Reconstruction was my introduction to R.E.M. Well, now we arrive at the first album of theirs to be released after I was a big fan.

1988’s Green was their first release for Warner Bros. Records and became their biggest hit yet. It featured the ubiquitous (and let’s face it, annoying) single ‘Stand’ as well as the hard rocker ‘Orange Crush.’

And while it has its moments, which I’ll get to, I consider Green one of the band’s worst albums.

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Song of the Day #680: ‘Welcome to the Occupation’ – R.E.M.

These R.E.M. theme weeks break down pretty conveniently into three sets of five albums each, with each of those sets representing a different stage in the band’s career.

The first week, spanning Chronic Town through Lifes Rich Pageant, captured the college years, when R.E.M. first broke onto the scene and popularized a new sort of cerebral alternative music. If I had to pick a favorite span it would be that one… something about that sound just hits me in the gut. But this second week’s batch of albums would be a close second.

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