Cuttings

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 ...