R.E.M.
Out Of Time

It is the album that marked the global success of R.E.M., and being R.E.M. mainly a rock band, one would expect a rock album, but instead, the four from Athens came out with this affair that, unlike "Around The Sun", on first impact made me wrinkle my nose quite a bit: an album full of highs and lows, characterized by very refined arrangements and a general mood that is quite pop with strong country and folk tones. The fact that R.E.M. exploded with "Out Of Time" would be at least curious if not paradoxical if it weren't for that song occupying the second spot on the tracklist, that "Losing My Religion" which, with its peculiar but highly impactful melody and an amazing video, managed to become a worldwide hit and carve out (deservedly) a place among the classics in rock history.

All true, but is one great song enough to make a great album? Absolutely not, especially if that song has to share the stage with an embarrassing mess like "Radio Song", which I could easily see on "The Game" by Queen, between "Another One Bites The Dust" and "Dragon Attack" (said by me, it's not at all a compliment), or with silliness like the semi-instrumental "Endgame", which is an arpeggio style "Stairway To Heaven" with Michael Stipe's background vocals that create a vague sense of bewilderment mixed with a generous dose of embarrassment. Neither the too monotonous and soporific "Low" nor especially the awful "Belong", a spoken song by Pete Buck crowned with ecstatic increasingly irritating backing vocals by Michael Stipe, turn out to be exciting.

It's inevitable that these four unfortunate performances drastically lower my judgment of the album, and it's a shame because the rest is certainly not to be discarded: "Near Wild Heaven" (this time they got the backing vocals right) and the ingenious "Shiny Happy People" are two beautiful pop songs, and the country trio "Half A World Away"-"Texarcana"-"Country Feedback", the first a well-crafted ballad, the second vaguely western with a particularly successful chorus, and the third slower and more anguished, significantly raise the general level, as does the final gem "Me In Honey", the true hidden treasure of the album with its oriental atmosphere and the excellent featuring of Kate Pierson from the B52s.

Overall, "Out Of Time" is an experimental album that offers moments of great pleasure and quality, even if interspersed with a few too many blunders that prevent me from considering it a great album, if not a masterpiece. In any case, a good effort, but fortunately, the "game of roles" among the four band members would soon be set aside.