>Automatic for the People (Warner Bros, 1992) confirms, a year later, the crisis that had been latent, drawing inspiration precisely from the weaker songs of the previous album, emphasizing orchestral arrangements and an elegiac mood. R.E.M. have often changed personality from one album to the next, and Automatic perhaps represents the peak of this schizophrenia. Suddenly, Stipe immerses himself in a dark and fatalistic atmosphere, halfway between a heroin addict’s nightmare and the final note of a suicide. Drive finds the strength to rise up in one of their epic psalm-like chants, perhaps the most heartfelt of their career, underlined by orchestra and accordion. Buck accomplishes one of his masterpieces of understatement and sparseness, limiting himself to strumming the acoustic guitar motif. Obsessed with the theme of death, the album broods over moods without offering solutions. Drive passes the baton to Everybody Hurts, an even more absorbed meditation, sung in a high, vibrant, soul-like register (and featuring yet another riff stolen from the Troggs), which then hands it off to the tender tribute of Man on the Moon (where the tragic fate of comedian Andy Kaufman becomes a metaphysical allegory), with finally a classic-style surge.

>And that baton ends up in Find the River, at the end of the album, a subdued existential plea that echoes many nostalgic refrains of singer-songwriters like Gordon Lightfoot and John Denver. The arrangements are intricate without being mannered, as demonstrated by the baroque prelude for organ and cello of Sweetness Follows, the airy folk-rock ballad Try Not to Breathe, and the mournful fantasy for piano and orchestra Nightswimming—songs that seem acoustic but actually hide a wealth of background sounds. The only remnants of rock and roll are found in Ignoreland, the obligatory political song, and The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite, surprisingly cheerful for this record, though both would have been minor tracks even on previous albums. What harms the album is its rather monotonous program and soporific tone—or, if you prefer, the lack of tracks that rouse the listener from the stupor into which Stipe’s tone wants, and succeeds, to plunge them. While the band must be credited for having reached a very sophisticated level of storytelling, the fact remains that many of these songs are no more original or brilliant than many mainstream pop ballads. Considered by many to be R.E.M.’s masterpiece, Automatic is more than anything else a senile and self-indulgent record, which stands more as a work of sophisticated pop than as one of innovative rock.

Love seeing your beautiful face here, Sweet Prince.

I don't need to think when you think for me.

>>126803042 (OP)
>Gave Monster a 7
What the fuck is his problem

>>126804674
he was based what the fuck? i love him now