Intro to Automatic For The People

  In 1992,  Automatic for the People was the first R.E.M. album I bought right after it came out.  I remember the feeling of opening the cassette (!) packaging and staring down at the yellow tinted tape.  It went into my headphones and didn't leave for a good three months straight.  There is a power in this album.  A quiet insistence and, dare I say, drive to the entire soundscape.  This is R.E.M. at the apex.  The lush sound of the orchestras and instruments, the pointed use of percussion, and the dark, beautiful lyrics.  It is clear that this album was the culmination and hard work of the entire R.E.M. roster.  In this discussion, I plan to get a little deeper into each song, and give each post as much credence and care as the songs themselves were given.
  The goal of the band for this album was to write a rock album, but for some reason at this juncture it was not the album they were inspired to produce.  In the end, there are only three songs that are up tempo.  However, the tempo of a song is not always the primary factor in whether a song "rocks" or not.  There is something of a guilty pleasure in the bridges of "Drive" and "Everybody Hurts" plus a hard bass line in "Star Me Kitten" gives the track a little more bite.  Overall, this is a sullen album, but it is a sensational kind of tone.  To put it in Shakespearean terms, this is the band's Hamlet ... a complicated ode to life and death, loss and renewal.  I can still remember the dark winter when this album was released.  I still think of "Nightswimming" as a cold, cold night.
  I was definitely disappointed when the band decided not to tour after the album, but what would that concert be like?  When they toured after Monster, the songs from this album were mostly scaled down-sorry "Man on the Moon"- if they had toured after this album through the arenas of the land, it might have sounded a bit maudlin.  Plus, after the near constant touring of their early years, they had a huge contract and had the opportunity to be a studio band.  This is why we have Automatic, because of the time and care the band finally had to craft their songs instead of banging them out while on tour.  And while the argument can be made for Monster, in my opinion this is their last, solid, first song to last song album until Collapse Into Now.
  I hopefully won't take as much time with this album as with Out of Time, but I'm going to be careful with it and uncover as many mysteries as I can.  Plus, after this album I will spend some time on the outtakes of the album known as the Automatic Box ... one of the best purchases I've ever made.
  First up ... Drive ...