1992 10 03 R.E.M. "Automatic For The People" NME Review

THE FINAL RECKONING?

REM
Automatic For The People
(Warner Brothers/All formats)

EVERY RIVER has a multiple tributaries, glorious sights on its banks, and an end.

If you imagine REM's career as a river, the source would be Athens, Georgia and the release of 'Radio Free Europe' in 1980, the tributaries would be the various collaborations Stipe, Berry, Buck and Mills have indulged in over the years. The glorious sights would be the temple of fandom erected around them, and the rapids - that started with 'Document' shifting a million copies and got faster through 'Green', more than doubling that figure to ‘Out Of Time' going supernova last year - have now reached the ocean, flowing around the world with 'Automatic For The People'. Future efforts will be played out on the same grand scale as the Michael Jacksons and Madonnas ...

But the river also signifies life, from your humble beginnings as a tot, through teenage years, to middle-age and finally to death. And 'Automatic For The People' is heavily preoccupied with death. With Michael Stipe in full-bodied, plaintive voice throughout, this is his LP; all the music framing his words and flights of fancy. You watch him take the stance of "everyman", "the man of the people", ponder global horrors and yet transpose them to a very personal level and you think, how come it's possible for a group that last played stadiums to make a record simply dripping with intimacy? And you know that, whatever happens on a commercial level, these decidedly non-market-forces-based outpourings will remain classic for years to come.

In the short (by superstar standards) amount of time since REM have been away, the thieves of grunge have taken over the rock temple. Testosterone-fuelled heavy metal cleverly disguised has become the main mode of expression for today's youth... and this is disturbing in the sense that noise is cool in isolated pockets, but when noise takes over totally, you wonder if you aren't living through the final days before Armaggedon.

Buck and Co have decided to ignore the noiseniks for the most part and create an acoustic-based music that uses strings, mandolins, pianos, considered guitars with the occasional wrenching coda and an assortment of other quiet instruments that thread perfectly into the mix.

It is still somewhat rock'n'roll, but bound to annoy those who wanted a return to guitar histrionics after the similarly downbeat 'Out Of Time'. The difference between the two LPs is more akin to taking "Country Feedback"s jagged emotion as a starting point and then getting more baroque, picking the best bits from the past (the slow ones) and moving forward, celebrating 'the song' in a time when even black music has almost been swallowed whole by heavy, political rap.

An acoustic guitar twiddles purposefully and you hear: "Smack. Crack. Bush-whacked/Tie another one to the racks, baby/Hey, kids, rock'n'roll, no-one tells you where to go now, baby/.. .What if you rocked around the clock?/Tick, Tock.. ." This is 'Drive', the single and the most straightforward song. Quiet drums come in, a jarring guitar chord cuts through, swelling strings frame the end and a resigned, weary but very powerful Stipe wonders what rock'n'roll is worth these days and could possibly be taking potshots at Kurt Cobain and the new grunge generation. "Maybe you're crazy in the head" he ponders, as the music refuses to lapse into cliche while he's quoting David Essex and Bill Haley. If this is music for 40-year-olds, then it must be great to be 40.

From there on in, 'Automatic For The People' swings towards the edge where death is palpable and inevitable but eventually redemptive. There are jokes, both musical and lyrical, to offset the gloom sometimes, not all of them blackly comic. Both 'Try Not To Breathe' and The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight' initially seem familiar and catchy but pretty standard stuff until you hear the words. In the former, Michael Stipe's character wants you to remember his eyes, wants a flag to fly over his grave and is shivering and cold from perhaps breathing polluted air. In the latter, a jaunty, almost delirious tune is levelled by a tale of the impossibility of communication with telephones and machines and computers, while humour comes from the quote from 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight; at the beginning, and the line: “I can sleep while standing up" in a sad way at the end.

Then the surprises start flying thick and fast. 'Everybody Hurts' is pure gospel, with "everyman” asking the listener to take comfort and strength and courage from the fact that we're all in the same boat. Where someone like Morrissey seems to celebrate loneliness, REM are offering hope to the lonely, and this is music with feeling. 'New Orleans Instrumental Number One' is just that, a sad tune with baroque leanings, see-saw strings, whose main instrument you can't readily recognise. Then more sadness mixed with hope comes with the pretty and moving 'Sweetness Follows':
”Readying to bury your father and your mother/What did you think when you lost another?" This offers more than condolences for the bereaved.

While REM are seemingly burning funeral pyres, it's not in the cliched, gothic sense The songs feel somewhat final in the Joy Division sense, but uplifting with it—not wallowing, nor merely r'n'r. The first sign of real propulsion comes with 'Monty Got A Raw Deal' a tribute to - perhaps - Mongomery Clift. Here Stipe goes from ruminating on the nature of nonsense to creating a movie in your head, like the finest Southern storytellers without their boorishness.

The music alternates between pastoral and heavy drums from Bill Berry before a continuation of sorts is made with Peter Buck's guitar both framing and cutting a swathe through 'Ignoreland', an almost totally indecipherable political rant that still doesn't sound like grunge. The blurring of words into music continues with 'Star Me Kitten' (formerly 'F—Me Kitten'), which has electronic voices humming and Stipe returning to his fearsome mumbling style: "Let's play Twister/Let's play Risk/ See you In heaven if you make the list"...

With 'Man On The Moon' comes humour, a kind of tribute to the late Andy Kaufman (who starred in Taxi, was an extreme stand-up comedian and an Elvis impersonator to boot) and namechecks for Isaac Newton and Moses. This is REM playing pop as a twist on popular American culture with a tune you can hum and keep humming while you work or play. In contrast, 'Nightswimming', which was left off 'Out Of Time', is just piano, strings and loud voice playing with poetic images to make a few points. There might be metaphors here for the fans, but then again there might not. You can be literal, after all.

There's a remarkable lack of affectation, celestial backing vocals (harmonies and back-ups are present throughout the LP, but used differently from before and, in some cases, sparingly) and metaphors galore on the final, heart-wrenching track, 'Find The River', which almost slips into despair but is pulled up by the warm, rich music.

The protagonist says: "...I have got to leave to find my way/Watch the road and memorise/This life that passed before my eyes/And nothing is going my way.. " and with images of someone leaving home, there being nothing and no-one left and this whole scenario eventually coming to everybody, you think it's just too bleak, until you remember how you can be washed clean by the river, made whole again, reborn. Then there's more hope...

'Automatic For The People' apparently takes its title from a sign in an Athens diner which means "immediate service" or something thereabouts, it could be a gun just like 'Sidewinder' could be a missile or a snake, but REM are in favour of gun control. They've also created an LP you can gain a lot from in times of trouble, that might be heavy-going but helps you deal with life. In their hands, music is no longer wallpaper, but a living, breathing organism as old as the hills, an old friend. Their hearts might be heavy but there's a glint on the horizon, a new sun rising. (10)

Dele Fedele