Murmur

REM are the godfathers of indie rock. They were the epicenter of what was then called college rock, which would then mutate into alternative, and finally become indie rock as we know it today. I feel like people take them for granted now, partially because their sound was pretty much completely absorbed by others in their time, and partially because they don't have a particularly aggressive sound - something that I actually appreciate them for. I get tired of rock and roll having to be cranked to 11 all the time. This is easily one of the most important and unique debut albums of the 80s. The jangly guitars, melodic basslines, and toe tapping beats are certainly nice, but I think the real secret sauce is in Michael Stipe's poetic lyrics and seemingly casual but subtly emotive vocal delivery.

R.E.M indeed. This is a snore fest.

Still my favorite REM album, though Reckoning comes damn close. This albums ringing guitars, impossibly tight rhythm section, beautiful backing vocals, soaring melodies and just general youthful exuberance cement this as their best album. REM are a great band and became more mature and polished but they never again matched their early period for pure excitement. Wow! 5 🌟

Depending on who you ask, this is REM’s best album. A debut that contends with some of the best debuts ever. I really enjoy this album. Hooky basslines, jangly guitars and weird lyrics that burst into catchy sing a long choruses. This album laid the groundwork for what was to come later in the 80s underground music scene and how big REM was about to become with albums like Document and Automatic for the People. Favorite song: Radio Free Europe Least favorite song: Shaking Through

warm guitars, sometimes naive sometimes deeply melancholic. feels like walking with band t-shirts, my headphones connected to my walk-man under a sunny campus, green paves the way.

Murmur is exactly what it says on the tin. Critics have fallen over themselves for decades to praise this record, singling out Stipe's lyrics for special attention. I mean listen to this piece of critical onanism from Jonathan Gregg in Record; he describes Murmur as "a splendid little film noir of an album, austere but rich in implication." But, as my mate Dave (hi Dave!) once said: "I used to think Michael Stipe wrote good lyrics until I actually heard what he was singing." I argue that Stipe's singing is best understood as impressionistic strings of sounds. They aren't cryptic ciphers with great depths of profound meaning. They are a hazy backdrop onto which the listener can project their own meanings and insights (which is why critics all think the lyrics are oh so clever; they are simply preening at their own reflections). The band, however, are pretty great, channeling the Byrds and Beatles and little bit of folk punk into the absolute template for college rock for the next decade. Special mention to Mike Mills, whose bass and other instruments anchor the arrangements, and whose backing singing is wonderful. The album is not well recorded, but I like the resulting aesthetic. This record would have been woeful if some cigar-chomping A&R man had dragged them down to Criteria Studios in Miami to spend six months doing bumps of coke, overdubbing synthesizers and polishing their masterpiece -- that came a few albums later. Much better we ended up with this, one of the pivotal documents (no pun intended) of alternative rock. Personally, I lean more towards Husker Du, but I reckon every share house I lived in during the 1980s and early 90s had a copy of this album.

Highlights: Laughing, Talk About The Passion, Striking Through Before they were shiny and happy and lost their religion, before everybody hurt, before they crushed with eyeliner...it was Murmur. The breakout album by R.E.M. that reignited America's love with sweeping guitar rock that was increasingly becoming punky- metal- glammy- and loud. R.E.M. would have fallen victim to the loudness wars if not for their just getting everything right, paving the way for acts like Live and Radiohead.

-major keys -jangly clean guitars -the same fast, aggressive drumming on almost every song This is feel good music. It's definitely not a chore to listen to. However, listening to this album further cemented my opinion that REM is a band that does one thing well and that thing is not particularly memorable or original. My favorite track was 9-9.

One of the best debut albums of all time and it’s probably not even their best album. Great melodies, great harmonies, great guitar, GREAT bass, great drums. Just all around great. R.E.M. are The Beatles of indie/alternative rock.

Personally, Murmur was one of those life-changing records that shifted the direction of my music tastes. R.E.M.'s sound was refreshing and much needed. Around this time I discovered other like-minded bands, the Replacements, Husker Du, Violent Femmes, etc. ,bands outside mainstream radio (college rock) and this music was the reason the 80's actually had some great music. I'll always have a special place for the first four R.E.M. records (especially the first two) in my collection and all of them are essential listens!

Wow 1983? By my RECKONING this album is way ahead of the trend for alternative music. Almost OUT OF TIME. It is AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE to say that REM are a little dull but I vote this one UP and would like to DOCUMENT my approval. I am not GREEN, I can tell that the production is weak in places and dig beyond the first few tracks and it does REVEAL some weaker tracks that I was happy to ACCELERATE past. Overall a MONSTER of an album and I look forward to more NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI as I discover new music by the band.

For whatever reason, I’ve never kicked the tires on Murmur. Monster would be my go-to and I like Green is fair enough, too. This is pretty great, especially as a debut. Didn’t realize they had their shit together like this from the get-go. Dialed back a bit sonically, but that’s to be expected; what’s unexpected though is how tight the songwriting is. Stipe sounds great as usual and Buck’s playing is understated but still carries great weight. I don’t think this’ll change anyone’s mind about REM, but this is an awesome change of pace record for me personally as a semi-fan. Very cool. 3.5

Couldn't get into this one. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood but it just seemed so instantly forgettable

Two R.E.M. records in a row! What are the chances?! This is a formidable debut. The band feels so fully formed and distinctive right out of the gate. My personal preferences for jangley guitar make this a really nice listen. It's a sparer version of the R.E.M. that would come to dominate the airwaves in the 90s, and I appreciate what it reveals about the band's musical dynamic. It's right in my wheelhouse. Some interesting range here, too. I'm hearing more of a post-punk vibe than I expected from R.E.M. on tracks like "9-9" and the triumphant piano-powered "Shaking Through". Of course, Stipe's vocals and lyrics are characteristically personal, introspective, and haunted throughout. I feel like this record gets a little lost in R.E.M.'s long career. If this was all they ever made, it would be a cult classic. Favourite songs: Radio Free Europe, Talk About the Passion, Moral Kiosk, Sitting Still, Shaking Through Rating: 4.5/5

I would listen to this album all day, every day and never get tired of it. A top three R.E.M. album, flawless from top to bottom.

Perfect R.E.M album, as I guess everyone knows..

I love this record. Moral Kiosk is one of my favorite REM songs.

Interesting to hear an early REM album from the eighties. The music was okay, but did not blow me away either.

Great album. Probably my second fav REM. Early REM is the best REM!! 4.5/5

One of the most important and significant Alt Rock records of all time

Top-notch record, recorded by nobodies in a nowhere town that shot them into the spotlight (beating out Thriller!!). The only issue I have is the sometimes too-clean composition that reflects a band piecing together in a studio rather than REM's legendary stage presence and ensemble. The key to the band in my opinion is there meticulous knowledge and reverence of the history of rock music. The Byrds, Patti Smith, Television, Wire, Neil Young, and local acts like Pylon and B-52s are all here, though in a fresh way that uses nods rather than outright plagarism. Moral Kiosk, Laughing, Radio Free, it's clear these young men from Athens had something that no one else did.

Excellent album. A delight to be reacquainted with it.

Great album! Very nice rhythms. Good for vibing

Jangly and catchy, but not exactly memorable

This debut album is pleasant enough. Good early indie music with a nice vibe that foreshadows even better things to come from this band. However it gets repetitive very soon.

I know some later R.E.M. (Losing My Religion) but found this pretty boring. The songs blurred together a bit, and I got the impression of a less dynamic Tragically Hip.

ALL-TIME FAVE.

Pulled out the Vinyl for this one, cooled down the beers, and let Hank (son) hear what pure unadulterated rock n roll sounds like. Thoroughly enjoyed it, as I do every time. Not a song on this I don’t love. Perfect.

Bop K admittedly i was zoned out for a lot of it but it was just banger after banger Relistened to it driving home in the dark and ive never felt more like an irresponsible teen that will grow into a girl dad

They knew what they needed to sound like.

I didn't know that post-punk became alternative rock but now I do.

Had not listened to REM debut previously - and found it more fun that had been expecting. I do like a lot of REM songs but had to admit that do find a lot of them fairly middling. Was therefore surprised by the energy of this record - would like to listen again - so sneaks a low 4.

Murmur Not sure I’ve listened to this, I get a bit mixed up with their albums from Murmur to Green. I do like REM a lot, but I’m nowhere near an aficionado, so I was quite surprised at how fully formed and ‘REM’ this felt stylistically, I had thought it might be an album of them feeling for their sound, but the jangly guitars, rhythm patterns, bouncy bass and melodic character are all in place, and it it feels reminiscent of their albums post New Adventures in HiFi, Perfect Circle for example sounds like it could have come straight off Reveal or Around the Sun. I suppose what’s missing is a really great song or two. Despite Radio Free Europe and Talk About the Passion being very good, and there being no bad songs at all, there is nothing that truly transcends as some of their later songs do. Having said that, it is still clearly a very good album, especially for a debut. And despite the lack of a killer song or two, as a whole 45 minutes it's a very coherent and enjoyable listen, with well crafted songs and the requisite amount of enigmatic lyrics and vocals. Not much more I can say, its a solid 4. 👁️‍🗨️👁️‍🗨️👁️‍🗨️👁️‍🗨️ Playlist submission: Radio Free Europe

I got my bit of jingle and a whole lot of jangle.

R.E.M. brought the heat. What a sick album.

Sorta background rock. Unremarkable to me but not bad

Rock.

Honestly so mid its unbelievable

What are they singing about

I was working at a music festival for the state broadcaster once and got the chance to interview Mike Mills. I was so uncharacteristically nervous and star struck, I forgot to record the damn thing. So it was just a nice 10 minute chat with a lovely man that I’ll remember for a long time. As for Murmur, it’s 10/10, five star, no holds barred, absolute brilliance from start to end. I must have listened to this album a million times. Perfection.

I love the sound of Murmur. It's close, comforting, yet otherworldly.

I wanna be REM when I grow up

Some folks in the group in Georgia are going to be pretty pleased with this one, and one folk in London already is. Always my favourite REM album, and it still sounds wonderful, with the added benefit of making me feel like I'm young again.

this album is basically the reason my wife moved to athens where we met, so 5/5. thanks REM! (…the album is also sooooo goooood)

I love this album, obviously. Murmur isn’t just R.E.M.’s debut—it’s a whole vibe. Mumbly, jangly, mysterious, and completely magnetic. It’s like tuning into a late-night college radio station and hearing something that sounds both brand-new and ancient, all at once. “West of the Fields” is the forgotten gem here—my personal favorite. True story—at an R.E.M. show around 1987, my college boyfriend hoisted me onto the stage, where I danced with a clearly terrified Michael Stipe for a whole 60 seconds before a bouncer politely but firmly uninvited me from the stage. When they released Murmur in 1983, there’s no way R.E.M. knew they were creating a record so good it would eventually inspire a flannel-wrapped freshman to launch herself onto the stage like a woodland creature in a dream-pop panic. This isn’t just a debut album—it’s the blueprint. Long live the kudzu.

All the songs seem to run together and I didn’t vibe with the first half. However the second half of the album does pick up and get better. This album requires you to be in a certain mood to fully understand and enjoy it, and it really strikes a chord when it does hit. The musicianship is excellent though and the guitars sound fantastic.

I'm not a 'fan' of REM necessarily but they are always entirely listenable. This album got two listens today whilst I went about my ways on a Sunday. Instrumentally great. I'm never massively tracking what Stipe is talking about but his voice is a perfect accompaniment to the music. Great for a first album for sure.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about Rachel’s review of Cyndi Lauper’s album and this identified undercurrent of sadness. Is it a reaction to punk? When you turn down the volume on anger is the result this raw desperation…a core of sadness revealed without the mayhem? I dunno. As for this…the record that launched a thousand underground ships on the radio waves.

It’s a bloody lovely happy jingly jangly guitar based pop folk record. Right up my street. Doesn’t get the full 5 stars from me, as it’s missing some magic ingredient, or some stand out tracks to elevate it. But a mighty fine record it is.

The debut from R.E.M. opens with "Radio Free Europe", which sets the tone and gives us a glimpse of what to expect on Murmur - jangly guitars, thumping but melodic and interesting bass lines, catchy choruses, and Stipe's cryptic lyrics delivered with a certain distance and murkiness. The rest of side A is just as strong as the opener. "Pilgrimage" carries on with more ambiguous lyrics ("Your luck, a two-headed cow"), followed by the moody "Laughing", the instantly memorable "Talk About the Passion", and the twitchy, guitar-driven "Moral Kiosk", which features some sharp, off-kilter post-punk riffing. The side closes with "Perfect Circle" which highlights the band's ability to build tension and release it in unexpected ways. On side B, Peter Buck pulls a page out of the Gang of Four or Minutemen playbook with his angular guitar work on "9-9". Only here, it’s filtered through his trademark clean, jangly tone. Other highlights here include "Sitting Still" and "West of the Fields". Murmur manages to perfectly bridge post-punk energy with accessible songwriting. While the musical ingredients were already there, R.E.M. combined them in a unique way, creating a distinct sound of their own, and would later inspire countless alternative rock bands in the 80s and 90s. Unlike many of their post-punk and new wave peers, R.E.M. carved out their own lane. The tracklist is very consistent and manages to keep the quality up all the way through, even if the first half feels a bit stronger. 4.5/5

Joyita new wave, 4 estrellas

Fav song: Laughing I've always really loved the way R.E.M albums sound. They have this summertime dryness to the production. I also adore the way Michael Stipe sings, his voice is amazing. One of the greats for sure. I'd have given this album a 5 stars but I don't think any of the songs really massively stuck out as killers to me, but the R.E.M vibe alone deserves a 4 at least.

Really good album

It's been a while since I got a really good album. Although I've never heard of the album before, it pleasantly surprised me. The instruments and vocals make songs that are creative and come together nice. The drums are especially good. The only song that wasn't great was, "We Walk" but otherwise definitely a good album to hear. Glad I got to listen to this album, 4/5

Some albums in this project pop up like an unexpected visit or call from an old friend. How are you doing REM? Where have you been? Keep in touch. I miss you.

I liked it, a less obvious recommendation than expected

Can see how its influential Alt Indie rock but it took me a couple of listens to start to get it. A real grower that I get more out of the more i play it. Given its release date this must have been one of the first crossover records from the Alt-Rock scene which exploded in the early 90s. 4/5

I feel like once you’ve heard one R.E.M. song, you’ve heard most of them. “Losing My Religion” is the exception because that’s legitimately a great song, but this album mostly reinforced my opinion. There were a handful of moments I liked, but most of the songs started running together pretty quickly. The jangly guitars, Michael Stipe’s half-mumbled vocals, and the general mood are all fine. I just kept waiting for something to separate one track from the next. “Radio Free Europe” had more energy than most of the album, but even that didn’t make me understand why this record is treated like such a landmark.

R.E.M.'s debut album. With my music taste, all indications should point to me liking R.E.M., but alas, I am not into them. I find Michael Stipe a tad annoying. With that being said, I do believe that this is their best album, with their best song, "Radio Free Europe". Solid, but it doesn't move my needle in either direction.

Uno de los primeros álbumes que dio a luz a lo indie?? Estaba bien pero nada particularmente interesante 🤔

Nothing stood out good or bad

Overall kinda bland to me

I liked Moral Kiosk but can't speak much about the rest.

Love the REM sound, brings me back. I'm wavering between 3 and 4 stars having just listened to it. I will think a little on it but I think 3 overall. Solid but nothing too spectacular.

Murmur has not helped me decide whether I find R.E.M. boring. I certainly find them boring some of the time, but ‘Radio Free Europe’ is exciting. Rest cheerfully slided past my ears without residue on first listen. Then I listened to this in OUR NEW CAR and they made more sense. The passion one stood out in particular. Is this car music? I still have trouble remembering most of the record, but I felt happier when it came on automatically when I worked out how to start the engine again. Maybe the connection is boredom: driving is boring at its best, a good kind of boredom. This is an important record, and I respect how they manage to pin down a distinctive aesthetic straight out of the gate. Calling their first album "Murmur" is gloriously on the nose, vaulting past the introductory, peak and self-parody phases straight to the post-modern. Feigned kindness has me refrain from repeating Chris Morris's cruel dark mirror description of Stipe, but I mention its existence in case it reminds S or anyone else here of it to bring a nasty smile.

Surprised R.E.M. has more than one on the list and this not being my second choice I may be very surprised they have 3 on here

I believe that when the Teletubbies return from a *hard day of work*, they chill in their living room, listening to this R.E.M. album. I didn't check the lyrics, but from the music alone, I get 200% positivity and everything-is-good vibes. There is a variety in the songs, but the overall tone made it repetitive for me. I hope I don't get any nightmares today with the sound of "We Walk" in the background...

Not gonna lie, this album was a nothingburger. Nothing about this one stood out to me. Very soft and repetitive. Just bland all around.

REM is overrated. I'm sorry, that's just the truth. This is like the 3rd album of theirs I've gotten and I've liked exactly 0 of them outside of a select few songs

Never really "got" R.E.M. I wasn't really interested in the album and tapped out after 4 songs

I keep trying to get into REM but I just don’t seem to enjoy they’re music very much.

This is so boring I can barely form an opinion on it. If I was a film editor, I would lazily use literally any of these tracks as 30-second clip to ease transitions of a travel montage showing a protagonist driving to a new city in a low-budget romcom or buddy comedy movie.

I forgot about this while I was listening to it.

I historically have been pretty ambivalent towards REM. They're one of those bands whom I respect for what they have contributed to the world of music, but I don't choose to listen to. This album was a pleasant surprise. No standout songs, nothing to make it GOOD per se, but Michael Stipe is less whiny here than my audio memory of him would indicate.

Ehh

Ehhh

A little prom bandy

I don’t think I understand this band

Nah fuck rem

Strong opinion but this does not belong on this list

Pls i beg you, stop giving me R.E.M. albums

not really my jam tbh, i am not super big on jangly guitar stuff or his voice, it was v samey to me & despite reading some reviews to see what other ppl loved abt it i still dont get it sadly :( no faves bc i didnt like any of them sorry :(

So I genuinely have very little to say about this. I kinda sorta liked some of the songs, but not much at all. The songs sounded the same to me and I was very bored. It was kind of a chore to get through this album if I’m being completely honest. Perfect Circle might be one of the most boring songs I’ve ever heard. Maybe I’m just tired, but these songs are seriously unbearably boring to me. The cover art is kind of intriguing. I think my neighbors have started to smoke. I keep smelling weed really strongly whenever I go out at night or open my window. This project has introduced me to a few songs I really like like Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths, but now I’m just starting to realize that music critics and snobs hate to have fun and only like boring music. I’m so bored with listening to this album that I’m talking about other groups and personal matters in the notes. I’m only like 10 albums in though, so hopefully they will get better.

223/1001 🇺🇸 This band mean the world to me and whilst its a thrill to be with a band from before they hit it big to hear them in their purest form i did it the other way round with REM. After picking them up aroundcl Out Of Time, there was so much pleasure in discovering their earlier records. There is something so understated and beautiful about Murmur. The title for starters, the cover and Stipes lyrics which are pretty cryptic whilst being sung with so much feeling. Best Tracks: Perfect Circle, 9-9, West Of The Fields, Talk About The Passion, Radio Free Europe, Laughing.

Great album. Every song is good. Feels ahead of its time - like a decade early. Of course a decade later REM was at the top of the charts, so it makes sense I guess. 5 stars.

Some days REM is my all-time favorite band and some days Murmur is my favorite REM album. Some days both those things are true at the same time; usually on days when I have made the wise decision to listen to Murmur. I was once walking between registers in the course of my five-something dollar an hour job as a bag boy at Winn Dixie and singing “Not everyone can carry the weight of the world” from “Talk About the Passion” quietly to myself (this was one of those days when REM was my all-time favorite band and Murmur was my favorite REM album) and a fellow bag boy who would go on to get in a car accident that left an indentation in his forehead big enough that he could stick a quarter in it and have it stay there even when he shook his head violently as a party trick heard me and responded “yeah, especially not a Williams” as a mildly insulting somewhat non sequitur regarding the fortitude and ability to persevere in the face of adversity of myself and my family generally.¹ I just looked up my fellow former Winn Dixie bag boy on Facebook and he lists his occupation as disabled but describes starting his journey at Liberty University in 2024 (so in his late-40’s because he’s my age) and earning a certificate in accounting, but not stopping there and re-enrolling the next year and earning his certificate in Medical Office Assistant with a perfect 4.0 GPA. Based upon his profile picture, he still has the quarter-sized indentation in his forehead. So maybe he was onto something when he implied that he and those of his bloodline had a greater tolerance for adversity and ability to persevere than the weak and feckless Williams family. REM weren’t exactly "Southern boys just like you and me" as Pavement described them in “Unseen Power of the Picket Fence”. Michael Stipe and Mike Mills grew up military brats which is like being from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Peter Buck and Bill Berry were Damn Yankees.² But the band did an excellent job of absorbing some of the ingredients found in the heady brew that is being Southern, one of which is perseverance. Southerners are like the kudzu featured on the cover of Murmur. Not really good for anything, and in fact a real nuisance and impediment to getting useful benefit from a piece of land, but no matter how much you try to get rid of it, the damn stuff just won’t die. Cut it back as much as you like and a week later it will be covering your field again and have a medical office assistant certificate with a 4.0 GPA. REM formed in 1980 and broke up in 2011. If doing what they did day-in-and-day-out for 31 years, and producing as many exceptional albums as they did during that period, isn’t perseverance then I don’t know what is. Another ingredient of the Southern experience is sometimes some of us make great art. Of all the great art that has been made in the short history of our country, I would argue that the lion’s share has been made by Southerners.³ Being crazy doesn’t necessarily mean you will make great art - in fact, 99% of the time being crazy will just result in you being crazy and art won’t be involved in the slightest - but being crazy, or at the very least dancing along the cliff’s edge of insanity, appears to me to be an absolute necessity to making truly great art. A thoroughly sane person can be an amazing craftsman and make beautiful things, but to be a true artist you have to be a little bit crazy. I think that is why the South is such a fertile ground for art. All Southerners are at least a little bit crazy, so we have one of the fundamental building blocks of great art already checked off from birth. Most of us never achieve, or even consider trying to achieve, any of the thousand other things that go into making great art. But by God do we have the being crazy part sorted. REM were a little crazy and they were an active touring band for thirty one years, a portion of that spent as one of the biggest bands in the world, which is bound to make someone crazy even if they started out sane, which shows true perseverance. They exhibited at least two of the ingredients that go into making the insanely beautiful, or more often just insane, monstrosity that is a Southerner. REM also made some of my all-time favorite albums, and Murmur is one of those, and I am thankful to have been able to experience it and to continue to enjoy it. ¹My fellow bag boy’s comment was made in the spirit of gently teasing workplace banter designed to pass the time rather than a spirit of ill-will. He was the Dwight to my Jim except I didn’t play any pranks on him or marry the cashier I had a crush on and our boss wasn’t Michael Scott but an elderly (or she seemed elderly to me at the time) redneck named Linda who could be a hoot at times but not in a Michael Scott-type of way. ²Yankees are people from up North (i.e. anywhere that isn’t the South) and Damn Yankees are people from up North who come to the South and don't leave. ³I would argue that because it is objectively true and if you pick the side of an argument that is objectively true then you have a better chance of winning the argument, and I am overly competitive and have an unhealthy focus on “winning”. I put “winning” in quotation marks because people with sense aren’t really playing a game when they play the game that is on the surface. Oftentimes they are playing a different game and the game they appear to be playing is just the outward expression of that deeper game that has a scoring system that isn’t on the inside cover of the box and has to be learned through years of actually paying attention to not just what people are saying but what they mean and correctly interpreting those implications. And the really smart ones aren’t playing a game at all and are trying to do something that is actually important like be happy or connect with others and the game is just an avenue by which to do that. But I am a very surface-level person and often don’t realize that there are ten other important games or non-games stacked on top of the game I am playing when I play a game with someone and so I play the game we are ostensibly playing rather than the more important game or non-games going on at the same time. "When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger."

great mixing & anything else

Great album

Murmur was perhaps the birth of what would be alternative rock: spawning a whole new niche of music that sounded like it was for 80s college kids of Gen X over the boomer music of the 70s. Not being pejorative, it was an album that soon defined what Gen X music would be. R.E.M. was coined "college rock" I guess as a contrast to disco's emergence in the late 70s as rock bands started to get a little funky with repetitive drumming and that scared predominantly white people. Enough generation talk, Murmur still rules today. Perhaps the most stereotypical R.E.M. album for Stipe's wonderful murmuring and hard to hear nature, but all that jangle rock sounds from the 60s and 70s was given a new chapter with Peter Buck's guitar playing. If R.E.M. didn't sound more clearly commercial in the 90s, I could've mistaken this album for being 10 years older than what it is. They were a band in the right place at the optimal time for a new generation of different music listeners, and also manage to sound uniquely timeless as well.

music is love

One of my favorites, colorful jangly sounds and tribal rhythms

Their first is still possibly their best.

So so excellent. I love R.E.M. but I specifically love this album. It’s got such a cozy and relaxing atmosphere but still is so interesting and fun.

Strong 4.5

If your view of this band is burdened by the baggage of over-familiar singles from their peak, this is your way in to discovering their true magic — a debut with its front man Michael Stipe still finding his voice, pushed back in the mix with the drums brought up front for an unmistakable, inscrutable sound that draws you in and never lets go.

Funny that this comes up so soon after I mentioned it (favorably), in reviewing (the less amazing to me 1987 REM album) Document. 5 stars, for this one! Still sounds great to me, 43 (wtf?!) years later - fresh, amazing, near perfect. I love every element of these songs - Michael Stipe’s idiosyncratic vocals, but powerful singing; Peter buck’s jangly guitar, weaving through the melody, bill berry’s excellent understated drumming providing punctuation abd emphasis, and (last but not least) Mike Mills’s melodic bass and important background/harmony vocals. And the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because of how it all blends together, each component making the other parts sound even better. I was 21 when this came out, and it’s an album made by guys who were not much older than me, from the part of the US where I spent my formative years, and expressing, musically, the excitement of new possibilities (musical and otherwise). This was a landmark album for me, and for people around my age. At least the ones who took music seriously.

Superb

Sublime. Brilliant.

Great one

I was obsessed with REM as a young person, I still am. Even though I stopped buying their albums after New Adventurers in HiFi, I never really had a problem with their output. This is where it all started for me, with the mumbling, jangly, melodic beauty of their work. I find them hard to define, feeling that college rock best describes them, its lo-fi but don’t let that make you think it is not polished, their work is cleverly executed and this album still haunts me to this day.