Automatic For The People

Yet, it is probably the best thing they've ever done. I'd half hoped that it wouldn't be. Awkward production deadlines have left me ruminating over 'Automatic For The People' for a couple of weeks longer than most reviewers and, all this time, I've had a sneaking wish that repeated listens would reveal some central flaw at its core.

No matter what we say, most critics suffer from Tall Poppy Syndrome – we feel compelled to scythe the successful down to the size. In this case, however, my desire to wield a sharp blade was thoroughly frustrated. The more familiar I became with the album, the more fervently I loved it. After a while, I even started to feel guilty about liking 'Out Of Time' so much. This is an infinitely more dazzling and profound achievement than anything on last yea's release. It is, quite simply, a stone cold classic.

What we have here is a band at the zenith of its powers. 'Automatic For The People' is not the product of years of tinkering and fine tuning. It didn't require the services of a conveyor belt of producers nor did it cost the GNP of a small African nation to make. The whole thing was actually recorded, from soup to nuts, in only a little over three months.

Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry had started "banging around" in the studio and making demos in August '91 but they weren't actually joined by Michael Stipe for song-crafting sessions until January of this year. Then, when it came time to start laying down tracks, the console duties were handled by trusted henchman, Scott Litt, and REM themselves. No guru, no messin', no five year sabbaticals – other rock stars, please copy!

And it's not as if 'Automatic For The People' is REM by numbers either. This is often a decidedly quirky album, an oddball of wax. Its lyrics, arrangements, musicianship, themes, even song titles all come from that eccentric piece of real estate that Americans like to call left-field. However, it's held together with a cohesion of mood and texture that is impeccably spun.

Most of the tracks are dark, gloom-laden, unbearably melancholy and some are underlaid with unsettling squalls of feedback and other instrumental static. Yet, strange thought it may sound, they are each endowed with a pulsing warm glow that is irresistible. They also positively drip with melody.

Throughout the album, Michael Stipe's lyrics alternate between the poetic, the whimsical and the downright impenetrable. Parts of some songs are so elliptical as to be completely meaningless. In many ways, this harks back to very early REM and to the young frontman's then extremely idiosyncratic and instinctive use of words and sounds. (Some years ago, I interviewed Mr. Stipe. When we were introduced, he acknowledged that my name was Liam and noted that the only other Liam he had ever met was Mr. O'Maonlaí of Hothouse Flowers fame. From that moment on, however, he proceeded to call me Siam. When, towards the end of our encounter, I politely pointed out his mistake, he said "oh sorry, in love using words connected with Thailand"!). Anyway, as he sings on 'Monty Got A Raw Deal', "Nonsense has welcome ring".

'Automatic For The People' opens with 'Drive' and 'Try Not To Breathe', two stunningly graceful pirouettes, dressed in extravagantly orchestral plumage – only REM can make acoustic guitars and strings sound like a full metal jacket. Then, there's 'The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite', the track that most immediately pinned my ears to the wall, a steepled cathedral of a pop ditty that comes complete with apologies to the writers of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'.

'Sweetness Follows', an eerie lullaby for those about to R.I.P. closes Side One, completing the circle from bliss to blissed out. In the middle of that, we get the brooding, magnetic 'New Orleans Instrumental Number One' and 'Everybody Hurts', the finest individual song on the album and featuring the most emotionally-charged performance of Stipe's career.

Side Two is when the going really gets weird. Here be songs about Montgomery Cliff and the value of nonsense ('Monty Got A Raw Deal'), The Mad Hatter's tea party that is American politics ('Ignorelad'), Andy Kaufman – Latka in Taxi – and Elvis ('Man On The Moon'). There's also 'Star Me Kitten', a love song (the 'Star' stands for 'Fuck'), and the beautiful, poignant closing brace of 'Nightswimming' and 'Find The River'.

'Automatic For the People' is a collection to cherish. There are groups who would willingly trade their entire canon for any one of these songs, and quite right too. Everyone should fly on 'Automatic…' pilot.