R.E.M. 8: Out Of Time

After their longest absence yet, Out Of Time sent R.E.M. thoroughly in to the stratosphere. It still had its weird moments, but concentrated more on straight pop with lighter touches—like chamber string arrangements—to truly appeal to the masses.

That’s not to suggest it would be confused with anything else on the pop charts. The very first sound we hear is KRS-One’s spoken intro to “Radio Song”, which blasts the current state of the broadcast medium. The song alternates between a standard arpeggiated section and a funky organ-based rant, with more KRS-One. The striking first single was “Losing My Religion”, and it’s easier to maintain one’s interest by continually embellishing it with different lyrics (“It’s bigger than you and you’re not that big… that’s me in the bathroom, that’s me in the driveway… consider this, consider this a divorce… every waking hour I’m flossing my bicuspids, brushing my incisors… I thought I heard you sing, I tawt I taw a puddy tat…”) “Low” provides the old swampy R.E.M. sound, though we still scratch our heads to the repeated lines about “love”. Contemporary interviews said this was their first album that dealt with the topic of romantic relationships, but if that’s the case, what the hell was Reckoning about? Anyway, “Near Wild Heaven” brings back the sunshine on a song led by Mike Mills; one can’t see Stipe contributing much to this beyond the “ba-ba-ba-bah-bah-bah” chorus. The nearly instrumental “Endgame” resembles nothing too far removed from “please stand by” music on PBS.

Even the band never wants to hear “Shiny Happy People” again. This album’s equivalent to “Stand”, it has been only slightly redeemed by Sesame Street’s revision. “Belong” is an extended jam started on the last tour, a distant cousin of “Superman” giving Stipe a reason to think he could recite his poetry without having to worry about melody. “Half A World Away” reprises the organ and mandolins in something of a retread of “Losing My Religion”. Mike Mills takes the lead again on “Texarkana”, which sports a strong resemblance to latter-day Moody Blues. “Country Feedback” is one of those songs that divides people, and rightfully so. It’s a simple four-chord sequence, repeated with distortion and feedback, layered with pedal steel guitar and Stipe’s stream-of-consciousness vocals, the latter of which would become a growing trend. Our favorite is still “Me In Honey”, a simple strum with a catchy beat, Kate Pierson’s moaning counterpart and an unresolved lyric about a life choice. With all their talk of “progression”, this song is classic R.E.M. just like we want them: guitar, bass and drums with vocals.

As with anything that became hugely popular in the early ‘90s, familiarity has lessened Out Of Time’s excitement over the past two decades (good Lord), but boy, did it sound great when it came out. The boys also didn’t tour behind it, so we were left to scramble to watch any TV appearances, which probably heightened the excitement. These days it seems a little too sunny, and we can forgive that. It didn’t emerge in the friendliest of atmospheres.

It was another one of those albums that made us feel very old once its 25th Anniversary Edition came out. The bonus disc was filled up with what the packaging called demos, but are better described as early versions, mostly without lyrics. That means two more versions of “Losing My Religion”, “Shiny Happy People”, “Near Wild Heaven”, and “Texarkana” (one of which has Stipe singing a completely different set of lyrics) and three of “Radio Song” (one of which has Bill Berry singing the other parts). There is one otherwise unfinished “rocker”, but slightly more interesting, and less tedious, is the expensive package, which adds most of their appearance on the Mountain Stage radio show plus the obligatory 5.1 surround mixes and video artifacts.

R.E.M. Out Of Time (1991)—3½
2016 25th Anniversary Edition: same as 1991, plus 19 extra tracks (Deluxe adds another 15 tracks and Blu-ray)