R.E.M.'s best, imho, and a formative album for me. My father had it and I hadn't listened to them before. Going thru his collection, I pulled it out while looking for something else (probably Pink Floyd or Van Halen or Depeche Mode (which, boy, that was a weird group for a conservative cop to listen to or Roger Water's solo stuff, you get the idea) and he told me I could have it. It was this album and, oddly enough, Chris Isaak's Heart Shaped World. I asked my dad why he didn't want it and he said it was "faggoty shit". Now, at this point, I was young and still only vaguely aware that my orientation might be different than my peers. Well I took it, only vaguely guessing as to what Faggoty Shit could refer to when he never made the same gestures at Elton John (who my mother loved). What I think he meant by that was 'sensitive'. Automatic For The People is a remarkably empathetic, deeply personal feeling album that doesn't get buried in itself and instead decides to thread those personal anxieties, loves and thoughts through a warm and lived in sonic space. Nostalgia, politics, mortality, romance and sexuality all mesh together in a sweet sort of late summer dusk-to-autumn cycle of Queer Americana. As time would go one, I'd deeply appreciate how much I see myself in this record. The popculture-to-political focus of Man on the Moon. The intimacy, excitement and rush of Night Swimming. The strokes to find yourself in bigger pictures with haunted melancholic undertones of Find The River and Sweetness Follows. The interpersonal spaces of impossible to ignore politics by the way of Ignoreland. It's a chronicle. It's tragic and beautiful. But sonically it's tight. A refinement of ideas explored in early R.E.M. records and represents a culmination of their sound before they'd experiment further. This is their best album. But that's what I love about R.E.M., their best is still equally good as other albums which could call their best (Document, Murmur, Reackoning, Monster, Hi-Fi, you could make a case for any of these).

As a rule, I don't drink during the work week. I feel like this album probably sounds like a 10/10 if you're half way thru a solid six pack of generic watery american beer.

Grateful for this one. Another certified classic. A band that sounds and feels years older than they were upon release but not because of some 'retro' sound. To this day, the weird attempts to make them out to be something closer to a classic rock revival on their debut is hard to truly wrap your head around now, but all the boomer rags wanted their new Led zep. They wanted to trumpet about how guitars were back, despite never ever leaving. Cringey shit. But the Strokes' age shone thru by way of their lyrical scope and seasoned tightness. Sonically it's such a cohesively considered record. A perfect album that could be played in any order to reach the appropriate conclusions. But moreover, an album of uncomfortable ennui. It's a sad album. It's realizing, too young, that hope is a blasted out crater while trying to consolidate that with a young life that's freewheeling but not so gleefly debauched as to turn full on edgy. Despite sounding deeply cool, it's never a jaded sound. If anything, it's the sound of not wanting to sound jaded.

As a rule, I don't drink during the work week. I feel like this album probably sounds like a 10/10 if you're half way thru a solid six pack of generic watery american beer.

R.E.M.'s best, imho, and a formative album for me. My father had it and I hadn't listened to them before. Going thru his collection, I pulled it out while looking for something else (probably Pink Floyd or Van Halen or Depeche Mode (which, boy, that was a weird group for a conservative cop to listen to or Roger Water's solo stuff, you get the idea) and he told me I could have it. It was this album and, oddly enough, Chris Isaak's Heart Shaped World. I asked my dad why he didn't want it and he said it was "faggoty shit". Now, at this point, I was young and still only vaguely aware that my orientation might be different than my peers. Well I took it, only vaguely guessing as to what Faggoty Shit could refer to when he never made the same gestures at Elton John (who my mother loved). What I think he meant by that was 'sensitive'. Automatic For The People is a remarkably empathetic, deeply personal feeling album that doesn't get buried in itself and instead decides to thread those personal anxieties, loves and thoughts through a warm and lived in sonic space. Nostalgia, politics, mortality, romance and sexuality all mesh together in a sweet sort of late summer dusk-to-autumn cycle of Queer Americana. As time would go one, I'd deeply appreciate how much I see myself in this record. The popculture-to-political focus of Man on the Moon. The intimacy, excitement and rush of Night Swimming. The strokes to find yourself in bigger pictures with haunted melancholic undertones of Find The River and Sweetness Follows. The interpersonal spaces of impossible to ignore politics by the way of Ignoreland. It's a chronicle. It's tragic and beautiful. But sonically it's tight. A refinement of ideas explored in early R.E.M. records and represents a culmination of their sound before they'd experiment further. This is their best album. But that's what I love about R.E.M., their best is still equally good as other albums which could call their best (Document, Murmur, Reackoning, Monster, Hi-Fi, you could make a case for any of these).

Grateful for this one. Another certified classic. A band that sounds and feels years older than they were upon release but not because of some 'retro' sound. To this day, the weird attempts to make them out to be something closer to a classic rock revival on their debut is hard to truly wrap your head around now, but all the boomer rags wanted their new Led zep. They wanted to trumpet about how guitars were back, despite never ever leaving. Cringey shit. But the Strokes' age shone thru by way of their lyrical scope and seasoned tightness. Sonically it's such a cohesively considered record. A perfect album that could be played in any order to reach the appropriate conclusions. But moreover, an album of uncomfortable ennui. It's a sad album. It's realizing, too young, that hope is a blasted out crater while trying to consolidate that with a young life that's freewheeling but not so gleefly debauched as to turn full on edgy. Despite sounding deeply cool, it's never a jaded sound. If anything, it's the sound of not wanting to sound jaded.