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Many critics and fans consider Automatic for the People to be R.E.M.’s finest hour. They’ll get no argument from me. Transformed into superstars by Out of Time, with millions waiting to see what they’d do for a follow-up, the band produced a complex, contemplative, and absolutely beautiful album.

Lyrically, the most frequent theme is death and loss. “Try Not to Breathe”’s protagonist is an elderly woman contemplating her full life and how she wants to be remembered; “Sweetness Follows” is about the coming together of a family at a funeral. In “Monty Got a Raw Deal” and “Man on the Moon,” Michael Stipe considers long gone cultural figures such as Montgomery Clift and Andy Kaufman. Amid all this melancholy is a core of hope, optimism, and belief in the human spirit. There’s the urge to “hold on” in “Everybody Hurts,” one of the most direct songs Stipe has ever written, and another entreaty in “Sweetness Follows” to “live your life filled with joy and thunder.” There’s also the goofiness of “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite,” which includes Stipe’s laughter over his mispronunciation of Dr. Seuss. The lyrics themselves are good, but what makes the songs great is Stipe’s emotional range, the way he can make a particular feeling almost tangible without having to overpower the music or the listener. I don’t think he’s ever been better as a performer than he is on this album.

It helps that he has such strong musical backing. While Bill Berry, Peter Buck and Mike Mills went into the studio expecting to do a harder rock record, they instead found themselves drawn to slower, more complex, often heavily acoustic arrangements. John Paul Jones added orchestral arrangements to four songs, including “Nightswimming,” which may well be my favorite song in the universe. The orchestral elements support Mike Mills’ beautiful piano melody, which perfectly fits Stipe’s reflections on the carefree spirit of youth. Mills also wrote the album closer, “Find the River,” which is quite possibly the best final track I know of. This time Mills’ keyboards balance with Peter Buck’s acoustic guitar and Stipe’s vocal to create a palpable sense of finality, a moment of looking back that’s calm yet intense because it sums up what’s gone before.

Buck and Bill Berry also contribute standout tracks to the album; “Everybody Hurts,” for example, was penned by Berry, while Buck contributed “Drive” and “Try Not to Breathe.” Buck’s songs in particular seem to hold a little more edge, a tinge of dark and ominous things on the horizon, but they’re still wonderfully constructed pieces of music. Outside of the peppy “Sidewinder” and the electric-guitar-driven “Ignoreland” (and maybe the choruses to “Man on the Moon”) this is generally a slow album, and while some have criticized those two songs for throwing off the album’s unified feel, I think both work well as interludes that try and cover similar themes from different vantage point, giving the album a little bit of variety to help individual tracks stand out.

Automatic was recently released in DVD-Audio format, featuring new mixes for both stereo and 5.1 channel surround sound. These mixes certainly allow the listener to hear more detail; there are certain instrumental flourishes as well as a line or two of vocals that I had not been aware of before the DVD. Some may find the tweaks a bit distracting, especially in the surround sound mix. It’s also a neat listening experience that gives some sense of the role mixing and production play on an album. The DVD-A also comes with images of Stipe’s handwritten and hand-typed lyric sheets, a short electronic press kit documentary on the making of the album and the restaurant that inspired its title, a photo gallery, and an extended set of liner notes. Since DVD-A players are not that common, I’d only recommend this version for the really hardcore fan.

This album is an outstanding piece of work, and the only reason I’m rating it a 4 is that Earl’s rating system won’t let me give it a 5.

1. Drive (4:31)
2. Try Not to Breathe (3:50)
3. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite (4:09)
4. Everybody Hurts (5:20)
5. New Orleans Instrumental No. 1 (2:15)
6. Sweetness Follows (4:21)
7. Monty Got a Raw Deal (3:17)
8. Ignoreland (4:27)
9. Star Me Kitten (3:16)
10. Man on the Moon (5:14)
11. Nightswimming (4:18)
12. Find the River (3:49)

Released by: Warner Bros.
Release date: 1992
Total running time: 48:52

It was clear during the recording of New Adventures in Hi-Fi that an era of R.E.M. history was coming to a close. The band’s tenth studio album was their fifth and final record of their initial contract with Warner Bros.; their relationship with longtime manager Jefferson Holt was deteriorating; and perhaps most importantly (at the time), longtime collaborator Scott Litt had announced that this would be his last time in the producer’s chair. The biggest milestone, however, was only clear in retrospect. A year after the album’s release, drummer Bill Berry retired, making New Adventures the last album written and performed by the original lineup of Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe. Fortunately, they turned out one of their finest efforts, a stirring album that serves to highlight the band’s diversity.

While not exactly a “road record,” a sense of travel and searching does fill the album. Several of the songs were written and recorded during soundchecks and performances on the 1995 Monster tour and have its hard guitar/feedback-heavy sound. “Binky the Doormat,” “Departure,” “Undertow,” and “The Wake-Up Bomb” had in fact all worked their way into the setlist by the end of the tour, and the album versions do a good job of capturing the energy of the live performances. My favorite song, “Leave,” was recorded during a soundcheck in Atlanta. The seven-minute track opens with an acoustic guitar intro by Berry, then kicks into gear with a siren-like feedback trail produced by backup musician Scott McCaughey holding a single key on an old Arp Odyssey keyboard and moving the octave switch back and forth - a wrist-numbing effort that meant the band could only rehearse the song on alternating days. The effort certainly paid off - the keyboard wail pushes the song along without overwhelming the other keyboards and guitar work. There’s a sense of overwhelming pressure, and Stipe’s vocals play off the music to convey the desperate desire to escape that weight. (Stipe himself said he wasn’t pleased with his performance on this song, and later re-recorded it for a much shorter and far less intense version. So go figure.)

After the tour, the band reworked some of the live tracks in the studio, bringing some of the complexity and production techniques that marked the band’s two biggest albums to the more energetic rock songs. Bittersweet Me, for example, benefits from additional keyboards from Mills supporting some fine Buck guitar work. The song mines some of the same thematic territory as “Leave” - I can feel the longing in the bridge thanks to Stipe and Mills’ vocals - but the brisker tempo also cuts the edge a little bit and makes the song almost wistful. “Be Mine,” an almost-but-not-quite power ballad, was originally demoed on a tour bus but was re-recorded in the studio, keeping only a bit of driver chatter as an intro. The almost-but-not-quite was a deliberate choice by the band, and I think it works well. At first listen, it sounds like a surprisingly sweet love song from Stipe - but as he’s pointed out in interviews, the lyrics are totally centered on the narrator’s desires, bringing an undercurrent of selfishness to the mix.

Several new songs were also added during the studio process. One of them, “E-Bow the Letter,” features guest vocals by Patti Smith, a shared musical idol of Buck and Stipe. The band insisted on making this “folk rock dirge” the album’s lead single - which was such a disastrous choice that the band started leaving such decisions up to the record label. It’s far from my favorite song on the album, and even in the grunge/alternative days of 1996, it wasn’t hugely radio-friendly. In the context of the album, though, it works. More successful is “New Test Leper,” one of a handful of songs that hearken to the more acoustic sound of Out of Time and Automatic for the People. The combination of Mills on organ and Buck on acoustic guitar makes the song almost float as Stipe plays the part of a tabloid talk show guest irked at audience, host, and fellow guests alike.

A brief instrumental, “Zither,” was recorded in the bathroom of the arena in Philadelphia, whose acoustics the band found particularly attractive. Berry stepped out from behind the drums on this one as well, playing bass. It makes for a nice interlude between “Binky” and “So Fast, So Numb,” a similarly energetic electric-guitar track. The album’s final song, “Electrolite,” brings in violin and banjo with Mills’ piano to create a fairly cheerful end to things, as Stipe sings, “I’m not scared, I’m outta here.”

Fitting words, indeed.

1. How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us (4:31)
2. The Wake-Up Bomb (5:08)
3. New Test Leper (5:26)
4. Undertow (5:09)
5. E-Bow the Letter (5:24)
6. Leave (7:17)
7. Departure (3:29)
8. Bittersweet Me (4:05)
9. Be Mine (5:33)
10. Binky the Doormat (5:01)
11. Zither (2:34)
12. So Fast, So Numb (4:12)
13. Low Desert (3:31)
14. Electrolite (4:05)

Released by: Warner Bros.
Release date: 1996
Total running time: 65:31

After the tremendous success of Out of Time and Automatic for the People, the members of R.E.M. were determined to, in the words of Peter Buck, put away the dulcimers and make a rock and roll record. The result was Monster, an album that fueled the band’s 1995 arena tour and a metamorphosis in their image but that doesn’t quite meet their high standards.

The opening track and first single, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?,” gets things off to a rather good start, with layers of harder, slightly distorted guitar setting the album’s tone while Michael Stipe sings about the inability to understand a younger generation and the foolishness of trying. (The song also marks the beginnings of the health problems that plagued this album and tour, as Mike Mills began to feel the symptoms of appendicitis toward the end of recording it and soon wound up in surgery.) While the sound isn’t quite like anything the band had done before, the underlying structure isn’t too far removed from previous up-tempo songs, and there’s enough of a melody to support the sonic touches.

The same can’t be said of every song on the album; the second track, “Crush with Eyeliner,” doesn’t seem to go anywhere and ultimately drowns under the feedback wail. The album’s closer, “You,” suffers the same malady. On the other hand, the most powerful song on the album is one of the slowest and least melodic; “Let Me In,” which Stipe wrote after learning of Kurt Cobain’s suicide, contrasts a quiet, mournful lyrical performance with a howling lead guitar played by Mills to very powerful effect. (The live performance of this song was a highlight of the tour as well.)

There are a couple of fast-moving, high-energy songs on the album as well, which are among my favorites. “Star 69″ and “King of Comedy” are successful experiments that prove the band can indeed still rock out. “Strange Currencies” takes the basic melody from Automatic’s “Everybody Hurts” and reworks it to fit the album’s style; like many of the songs on Monster, Stipe’s new lyrics suggest the darker, possessive aspect of relationships. That dark edge, and the more pronounced sexuality of songs like “Tongue” and “I Don’t Sleep, I Dream,” are Monster’s primary themes.

In the end, Monster isn’t the attempt to cash in on grunge’s popularity that some critics accused the band of making; it’s a not-always-successful experiment that epitomizes R.E.M.’s determination not to get stuck in a rut. Of course, even failed experiments can yield results, and I’d argue that’s the case with Monster, which helped set the stage for one of the group’s finest works.

1. What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? (4:00)
2. Crush with Eyeliner (4:38)
3. King of Comedy (3:41)
4. I Don’t Sleep, I Dream (3:28)
5. Star 69 (3:08)
6. Strange Currencies (3:53)
7. Tongue (4:13)
8. Bang and Blame (5:30)
9. I Took Your Name (4:03)
10. Let Me In (3:28)
11. Circus Envy (4:15)
12. You (4:54)

Released by: Warner Bros.
Release date: 1994
Total running time: 49:16