REM - Automatic For The People

Of the millions of albums which have been recorded, only 15 can make it into The Lucy Museum of Musician's who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians and at number 14 we have Automatic For The People by REM  (1992).

REM had six other albums released before they hit their stride with Out of Time and then the even better Automatic For The People and then as soon as they hit it, they missed it again with the next seven but they were part of the early 90's along with many other great bands like Nirvana and Guns N Roses although they couldn't be further away from the guitar sound, their greatest hit, Losing my Religion, featured a mandolin but they were on MTV at the time between the louder, more shouty bands so are inexplicably linked with them in my mind.
Like most REM songs, the lyrics to their songs can be a bit weird, i would sing along and think that can't be right and look up the lyrics and discover actually, he really did say that but then Michael Stipe is wonderfully eccentric so it makes sense.
The song Everybody Hurts is one of the most downbeat songs i have ever heard but the video did give a friend and i the game of looking at people in stationary traffic and guessing what they are thinking so it would be she's thinking 'i wish i had turned on the light when i put my make up on this morning' or the old guy is thinking 'I wonder where the tree is that is growing the wood for my coffin?
Those two albums did bestow upon them the label of One of The Biggest Bands Around and made them household names but i can't help thinking that it they hadn't had that burst of inspiration over those 20 odd songs in the very early 90s they would be the band version of Tom Petty who everyone heard of but when he died, the conversation with most people went i know the name but buggered if i can name any of his songs.