Automatic for the People

R.E.M. came off the massive commercial success of Out of Time in 1991 and, rather than tour the world or consolidate their position as one of the biggest bands on the planet, went straight back into the studio and made something slower, quieter, and more emotionally exposed. Automatic for the People is the sound of four people who have reached the peak of their ambition and decided to stop looking outward.

The album is dominated by ballads. Of the twelve tracks, only three have anything resembling rock energy. The rest unfold gradually, built on acoustic guitar, piano, and orchestral string arrangements by Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, who contributed to several of the record's most affecting moments. Michael Stipe's voice is the instrument the whole thing turns on, delivering lyrics about mortality, grief, celebrity, and loss with a directness that his earlier work had often obscured in abstraction. "Everybody Hurts" is one of the most nakedly empathetic songs ever written, constructed around a simple guitar figure and a chorus that offers comfort without pretense. "Nightswimming" is a piano ballad about the passage of time and youth that closes the record on a note of almost unbearable tenderness.

The album is named after the motto of Weaver D's Delicious Fine Foods, a soul food restaurant in Athens, Georgia, where Weaver D would greet customers by saying "automatic" to mean everything was taken care of. That sense of ease and care in something fundamentally serious is exactly what the record delivers. It sold over 18 million copies worldwide. It deserved every one of them.