R.E.M. were hardly short of potential hit songs on their mega-selling 1992 record Automatic For The People. Their eighth record is one of the most rustic and languid efforts of the Athens, Georgia quartet’s career, its homespun twang, stirring strings and sparse acoustic strums allowing their way with an indelible melody to really come to the fore.
Drive, Everybody Hurts, The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite, Sweetness Follows, Nightswimming – this was R.E.M. in the midst of a majestic imperial phase. But the record, which arrived only a year after their other mega-selling classic Out Of Time, very nearly came to completion without one of its most famous tracks.
