The Best R.E.M. Album Automatic For The People By nightwing on Jan 07, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

I find this to be the strongest R.E.M. album to date. It is a follow-up to their breakout hit album, Out of Time. It continues in the same sort of sound as their previous album, but branches off from it at the same time. The album has a bit of a dark feel to it, as if a dark cloud is hovering over it...but in a good way.

The lead-off single, Drive, is one of my favorite songs from the band. It has a really sparse and moody feel, and is a bit more rock-sounding that the rest of the album. The album tracks Nightswimming, Find the River, and Sweetness Follows are nice slow songs.

The song Everybody Hurts was the biggest hit off the album, but I don't care much for the song. A lot of their songs are a bit cryptic with really unusual lyrics. This song is too obvious for my tastes. I appreciate that they were doing something different with it, but it's just not for me.

This is R.E.M. at their best. They experiment with their sound here and, for the most part, come up with some winning tunes.