Hey I Can't Find Nothing on the Radio, Turn to that Station

Peter Buck once not so affectionately referred to his band’s early nineties records as R.E.M.’s James Taylor period, and sure Out of Time featured the worst song ever by a great artist with Shiny Happy People and included Endgame which sounded like it was lifted from seventies AM radio, but he is not giving the album along with my favorite album by the band Automatic for the People) enough credit. Yes the songs were much mellower than their previous work but the band got out of its comfort zone utilizing different instruments and even included a strings section on multiple songs. So I will be giving Out of Time its due by making it this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

The embracing of new instruments by R.E.M. was best exemplified by the album’s first single and band’s biggest hit Losing My Religion where Buck put down his guitar and picked up the mandolin which was a perfect backdrop for Michael Stipe’s haunting vocals. Half a World Away also featured the mandolin, but in a much more upbeat use than Losing My Religion and featured bassist Mike Mills on his new instrument for the album, the organ and remains one of the band’s most beautiful works of art.

Out of Time also so the introduction of guest vocalist, a first for the band. R.E.M. may have been the first alternative rock group (or college rock as it was called back then) to include a guest rapper on the song, and they even started the album off with KRS-One on Radio Song (which should have been a much bigger hit than it was). Their old Atlanta buddy Kate Pierson of the The B-52's adding vocals to Shiny Happy People, Country Feedback, and Me in Honey.

Though Out of Time was the start of the band’s “James Taylor” era, the album still featured a few songs that would not have been out of place on their eighties albums like Low where Stipe gets low on the vocals against a sparse backdrop of staccato guitars and organ. While Belong features the classic harmonies of Stipe and Mills that really sore in the chorus. But Out of Time was just a great primer for what was coming next with Automatic for the People where the band were at their peak musically.