R.E.M.
Document

THE REVIEW

The REM, one of the most celebrated underground bands since the mid-80s, dedicated much of their energy not so much to leave behind good music for posterity, but to leave the underground scene.

With "Document," they finally managed to achieve their goal, surpassing for the first time the one million copies sold mark.

Considered by many a masterpiece, "Document" is actually just a good radio album, which almost renounces their essence, already partially denied in "Life…".

The intro is rock like in the previous album: "Finest Worksong." This track, one of their classics, is the parent song of various tracks on the album, but almost none of the offspring tracks ("Strange," "Exhuming McCarthy," "Lightin Hopkins") live up to the parent – in fact, any slightly above mediocre band could have written them.

Exceptions are the beautiful slow-rock "Oddfellows Local 151" (with melancholic singing and a near-feedback guitar finale truly remarkable) and the good "Fireplace" (with a nice sax solo at the end).

Old-style REM tracks are not lacking, with the folk-rock arpeggio in the background, which nonetheless suffer from the aura of mediocrity that envelops almost the entire album: "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Disturbance at the Heron House" (with an amateurish melody in the verses, but that recovers in the chorus). Really distant from the emotional masterpieces of previous albums.

The only tracks worthy of the past are "The One I Love" (although light-years below "Fall on Me," to quote the old-school masterpiece of the previous album) and the charming acoustic march with a melancholic shift "King of Birds."

Fortunately, REM can still surprise us with a flash of genius like "It's the End of the World" (a vocal masterpiece by Stipe) which, although fast-paced, constitutes one of their greatest achievements and would have been a perfect intro to the album.