It’s sad that R.E.M. fans have to justify themselves with ‘but they were Kurt Cobain’s favourite band!’ For more than two decades now, they have been making music their way. For some it’s trite, fluffy and underwhelming, stained by overexposed radio repeats; others are faithfully and uncompromisingly hooked on their brand of jangly 80’s pop. Either way, every music fan should own Automatic For The People. This album is, without a doubt, one of the masterpieces of 90’s music.

‘Everybody Hurts’ is a perfectly-executed piece of pop depression, and a song that, despite being over-played, still has the power and impact to bring a listener to tears. Primarily intended to be a song of ‘hope’, it possesses a timeless message from a man who’d suffered his share of internal battles: “When you feel like you’re alone/No, you’re not alone.” Michael Stipe here abandoned the cryptic wordplay of previous albums (“Stand in the place where you live”) granting us an insightful, touching and simple example of lyrical craftsmanship. Written as a reaction to the growing rates of teenage suicide, Stipe aimed the song at a young audience, finally relaxing into his role as an older-statesman of pop music. From the previous album, Out Of Time, and the success of singles ‘Losing My Religion’ and ‘Shiny Happy People’, people could be forgiven for believing R.E.M. were an out-of-touch, rather superficial pop group. Automatic For The People, and ‘Everybody Hurts’ especially, changed this perception.

‘The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite’ is probably the dark-horse of the album – on any other R.E.M. record, it would’ve been the lead single. The rhythm to the vocals and the cascading strings offset the somewhat frantic chorus, Stipe’s continued honesty most vivid in the audible chuckle after he sings some of the album’s best lyrics:

“Baby, instant soup doesn't really grab me
Today I need something more sub-sub-sub-substantial
A can of beans or blackeyed peas, some Nescafe and ice
A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading of Doctor Seuss.”

‘Man on the Moon’ harks back to R.E.M.’s bright-pop beginnings. The lyrics are nonsensical to most, especially those unfamiliar with the improvisational comedy of Andy Kaufman, the song’s inspiration: “Mott the Hoople and the Game of Life/ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah/ Andy Kaufman in the wrestling match/Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” The importance of lyrics now displaced to lazy country-guitar riffs and irresistible melodies.
 
Grief takes hold in ‘Sweetness Follows’, the pulsating cello providing the heartbeat to Stipe’s musings about the loss of loved ones. The feedback-stained guitar of Peter Buck is far from his lithe, finger-picked riffs of previous R.E.M. classics, but evokes perfectly the morose and despairing mood of the song – a perfect counterpart to Stipe’s sorrow, Buck echoing a wail of his own. This track, as heavy-handedly depressing as it may be, is as cohesive a piece of mood-music as R.E.M. have produced.

Now to the album’s u-turn, a song about skinny-dipping, ‘Nightswimming’ is a gorgeous piano-driven ballad, one of the album’s successful singles powered by lovely lyrical imagery: “The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago/Turned around backwards so the windshield shows/Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse”. ‘Find The River’ continues ‘Nightswimming’s’ water imagery, but rather than evoking a sense of the past, it is a song of expectations, perhaps failed, and a philosophical approach to life in the modern world: “There's no one left to take the lead/But I tell you and you can see/ We're closer now than light years to go.”

This could be a sentiment of hope akin to that of ‘Everybody Hurts’ – “when you’re sure you’ve had too much of this life/well hang on” – and could again show Stipe in didactic mode, preaching about the advancement of mankind. It could also be his fatalism taking hold, as he acknowledges we’re closer to Armageddon than ever. While Automatic For The People may be Stipe’s most accessible collection of words, at times Stipes poetic bent renders his lyrics incomprehensible. ‘Find the River’ is an example of this, however its orchestral-folk vibe is nothing short of beautiful, the swirling backing vocals in the chorus containing an ethereal quality; the chorus melody itself at once soaring, hidden under the band’s quiet swell. All-in-all, it’s as memorable and poignant a conclusion as Automatic could possible have.

Automatic For The People is a brilliant record, the faults of which are slight and irrelevant – lyrical inaccessibility and rather standard song-structure. While the actual effect of R.E.M. on modern music is unquantifiable, they, like other greats of 80’s and 90’s pop such as Crowded House, consolidated the popular rock ‘n’ roll sensibility that was neglected in the late 70’s and early 80’s. But their albums are quantifiable, and while each of their 12 long players contain their own sparkle of brilliance, Automatic For The People stands alone, it is, in every way, a work of pure genius.