R.E.M.- Automatic for the People

I first discovered R.E.M. via this album, and I know that immediately marks me out, potentially, as a fashion conscious wanker. Let me, then, assure you that i was genuinely seventeen, exploring music, and pointed towards this by no less than Kurt Cobain.

With any band that makes it big, there's a critical consensus on the best album. For R.E.M., it's this. It's uncool to say this is their best album, but... it is. I challenge you to name any filler within this album, single or no.

No? Well then. This is an album where the deep cuts are Ignoreland and Try Not to Breathe, not singles only by mere chance. Like every damned song on the album.

The album, while awrsome throughout, steps up a gear, incredibly, with the ending duopoly of Nightswimming and Find the River. Two sublime examples of songwriting.

This album, more so even than its excellent predecessor, exalted R.E.M. from the unfderground to the mainstream. I'm not so sure that was a good thing. Yet the band deserves success. Such was the tension of ethics back then. Yet R.E.M. will never belong to them. Always to us. They are real.