R.E.M.
Monster

Put aside the acoustic longings of the incredibly successful "Automatic For The People," in 1994, R.E.M. decided it was time to bring out some healthy grit and put the guitars into distortion. The result is their best album of the '90s and one of the gems of their discography: "Monster." An angry album, yet at the same time playful and flirtatious, bright and gloomy. It is, above all, a sort of concept album about identity and the nature of celebrity.

This is confirmed by the splendid opening "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?", in which the protagonist is literally obsessed with trying to understand as much as possible about the younger generation, analyzing everything that spews out of the mass media; it's no coincidence that at the end of the song, he will declare he hasn't understood a thing. A subtle and ironic critique of the attempt to box the infamous "generation x" of the '90s, certainly, but also a track where for the first time, there are roaring and trembling guitars; the same ones that greet us in "Crush With Eyeliner." Buck's guitar tremolo is omnipresent and flashes like never before, while Stipe is accompanied by his friend Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth (was there any need to specify?) in a song with a sly identity.

The following "King Of Comedy" is spectacular: on a borderline base between dance, industrial, and grunge hovers a robotic voice that enjoys making fun of the celebrities' need for attention and gossip, precisely at a time when R.E.M. had been catapulted into the orbit of stardom: in the chorus, Stipe growls "I am not your television. I am not your magazine. I am not a commodity," sarcastically demonstrating his integrity.

After the weak "I Don't Sleep I Dream" (one of the weaker tracks of the bunch, penalized by an annoying falsetto in the refrain) comes the playful "Star 69", where the voice delay and fast guitar chords particularly stand out; "Strange Currencies" impressively resembles "Everybody Hurts," to the point of probably being a "Monster" reinterpretation, but without being as beautiful.

"Tongue" and "Bang And Blame" are two minor episodes, followed by the eerie "I Took Your Name" and one of the best tracks on the entire album: "Let Me In". It is a touching and heartfelt tribute to the late friend Kurt Cobain and from the first notes, it sounds like a boulder. The guitars are rusty, accompanied by a little organ and Michael's moving performance, who, with extremely evocative images, vents all his pain and expresses a strong sense of inadequacy (the beautiful line "I've got tar on my feet and I can't see / all the birds look down and laugh at me") which often makes it hard to listen to. But as soon as the sadness of this tribute softly fades away, we're overwhelmed by the buzz of "Circus Envy", a venomous and acidic depiction of envy and jealousy: the voice becomes distant and threatening, the atmosphere hateful and self-destructive while the guitar literally fries throughout one of the noisiest and darkest songs of the entire discography. Fantastic. Once the anger is exhausted, there's nothing left but to conclude the album with the sinister "You", halfway between a sincere love dedication and an unhealthy obsession with someone; the tone of the voice is always very unsettling and the instrumental part almost makes you uncomfortable, leading to the mechanical repetition of the word "you" for a spine-chilling finale.

"Monster" is an ever-changing and electric album, often underrated in favor of other episodes in their discography (especially "Out Of Time"), to which the band should certainly be credited for their courage to fully put themselves on the line, especially when the final result is of this level.