R.E.M. - AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE

This right here...this is the album.




Well slow down! I don't mean the best R.E.M. album...

I mean, this album is the reason why after nightfall, we don't listen to R.E.M. on long car drives. Seriously. It's long, slow, dragging, and depressing. Imagine R.E.M. trying to do Swans. But only for the first song. After that, it's some pop songs. "Try not to Breathe"? "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite"? "Everybody Hurts"? All are either really poppy sounding or just kinda silly or make you want to walk out of your car on a freeway.

Then there's some other stuff - an instrumental, another slow song, some song that sounds like kinda generic 90s rock, more 90s generic rock, a weird slow song, a song about Andy Kaufman, a slow, sweet song about swimming at night (I think they had a song like that 10 years or so before this..."Weeding at Night"? "Shrubbing at Night"? "Planting at Night"? "Disposing Old Bodies at Night"?) and some other song that some people like a lot. I like it too.


Really, this is a strange R.E.M. album - it has a certain "mood", but that "mood" isn't throughout the whole thing - honestly, it'd be better if they cut out the 2 generic rock tunes and made "Man on the Moon" 20 minutes long. And to be honest, "Everybody Hurts" annoys me sometimes - and it isn't because it was overplayed in my youth - it's because of Michael freasgking Stipe. It's due to that part 2 minutes in where they start rocking...where he says "don't hold/throw your man/hand" or whatever and his voice is just annoying. This album also needs more Mike Mills. Every R.E.M. album needs more Mike Mills.

OVERALL RATING - onion rings/straws
KEY TRACKS - Man on the Moon, Try not to Breathe, Sweetness Follows