Spinning Plates #2

Once a week, Spinning Plates examines an essential “long player,” an album worth listening through from the first note to the last.

There are, in my humble estimation, three great R.E.M. albums: Murmur, Automatic for the People and New Adventures in Hi-Fi. While Automatic for the People lacks a bit of the eccentric charm of Murmur and a bit of the ragged edge and world-weariness of New Adventures in Hi-Fi, it remains the only absolutely “essential” R.E.M. album.

Automatic for the People is the very epitome of a “slow burner.” There are no flashy moments or manic sing-a-longs here. Unlike the bombast of Monster, these are songs that creep up on you and slowly work their way into your life. The thing that is most striking about Automatic… is its vaguely heartbreaking, yet ultimately graceful sense of maturity. If there was ever a sound to capture the “feeling” of adulthood, it IS this album. “Smack, crack, bushwhacked,” Michael Stipe intones on “Drive,” the album’s opener. “Tie another one to the racks, baby, ” he continues, cataloging a post-adolescent wasteland of discarded hopes and dreams. “Drive” lives up to its name in spite of itself. It’s rock and roll chamber music. Meanwhile, “Sweetness Follows,” with its creaky cello, and “Monty Got a Raw Deal,” with its winding guitar riff, remain two lost gems of 90s modern rock.

Despite all of this, what really makes Automatic… amazing is three pronged attack of “Man on the Moon,” “Nightswimming,” and “Find The River.” Taken together, this trio of songs offers a soul-shattering lament on the price of adulthood. If we only knew now what we knew then.

R.E.M. has often struggled to find its niche after this pinnacle, but I guess it’s difficult to follow-up on an album that remains utterly brilliant from beginning to end.

— Curt Whitacre