“People talk to me on the street about it and say, ‘That song was really there for me when I needed it’”: the stirring 90s anthem inspired by Nazareth and featuring strings arranged by a member of Led Zeppelin that made this band absolutely massive

R.E.M. in 1992.

R.E.M. went supernova in the early 90s. They had spent the previous decade elegantly shimmying towards a mainstream sound, their jangly college-rock growing ever more muscular and frontman Michael Stipe’s indelible way with a hook increasingly taking on a more anthemic bent. But no-one could’ve foreseen how huge they were about to become at the beginning of that decade. Over a pair of albums, 1991’s Out Of Time and swift 1992 follow-up Automatic For The People, they found the sweet spot between immersive fully-formed records and world-conquering hit singles.

Out Of Time had Losing My Religion, one of the strangest and therefore R.E.M-est of smash hits (it doesn’t even have a chorus!), but Automatic For The People had the song that went send the Athens, Georgia quartet into a whole new realm. Everybody Hurts has become such a cultural staple that it doesn’t even feel like R.E.M. own it anymore. It’s like one of those hymns where the credit reads “Trad. Arr” at the end – it has become a song that belongs to everyone.