Only CDs Is Sounding Like These # 24: R.E.M., Out of Time (1991)

A new occasional series - CDs are coming back baby! And I’m here for it. BIGTIME! Also, some albums just REALLY suit the format, right

This was the album that fully won me over, made me a huge R.E.M. fan. And because, as world-beating as it is, or was, there was some frustration from Day One fans about how this was sell-out stuff, and took R.E.M. to the stadiums in much the same way that the post-Joshua Tree world had worked out for U2, I should clarify that it wasn’t the first R.E.M. album I heard. I was given Life’s Rich Pageant on vinyl by one of my dad’s workmates, and I thought it was pretty cool; I’d heard Green, the record before this one, and I loved Stand and Orange Crush so much that I was convinced R.E.M. was gonna be the band for me. And I’d also checked out Document and the first ‘Greatest Hits’ album, Eponymous.

But the chance to get Green on one side of a C-90 cassette tape, and Out of Time on the other (and not run out of time, it’s 44.08, ha!) was what made me a massive R.E.M. fan. I spent so much time with this album, and Green. But then the MTV Unplugged show was on late night TV and though that moved around throughout their career, it was timed to promote Out of Time, their brand new record.

I bought this on CD, as soon as I started buying CDs, a couple of years after the album was first released. I left that C-90 R.E.M. “double” in my car until I no longer had a car that played tapes.

And so, just recently I was given a copy of Out of Time, and I was a bit nervous to play it. I think of R.E.M. these days as one of the great bands of the 1980s. Everything from that decade has aged beautifully. But, actually, if I’m going to play an R.E.M. it’s one of their many “sell out” titles from the 90s. Which are (also) incredible, and show a band just constantly maturing, evolving, and never quite repeating itself. Automatic For The People — brilliant. Monster — better now than it ever was, but always great. And New Adventures in Hi-Fi, my favourite. There’s also Up which is really rather gorgeous. What a great band.

And maybe I miss them all the more for the staying-away. I saw them on their final world tour. It was wonderful. And then they called it a day. Barely ever making a mistake. One dud album. One so-so album. But those were both so late in the piece that it did not matter.

Anyway, to Out of Time. Anyone unhappy with Radio Song or the ubiquity of Losing My Religion and the forced smile of Shiny Happy People still has Low, Endgame and Country Feedback. There’s the gorgeousness of Near Wild Heaven, which updates some of their 80s folk-ish pop moments. There’s not (really) a dud track on this album. And I for one love Radio Song. Banger of an opener. I also have never not loved Losing My Religion. Even as I played a hand in the ritualistic slaughter of it that comes from being in a covers band. Shiny Happy People I could do without, sure. But as I only ever hear it now in the context of the album, of course it gets a (free) pass.

It’s not R.E.M.’s best album — but it is one of their best CDs. It perfectly puts them into the 90s, while linking back to aspects of the 80s (Green in particular, but Life’s Rich Pageant somewhat too). And I love the idea of it and Green as sister-volumes, as friends, not quite sequels, but “palinodes”, to use a quite Stipe-ian sort of phrase.

I also realise I’ve probably never listened to Out of Time in the time between CD copies. However long that’s been?

It’s nice, every now and then, to realise just how great R.E.M. was, is, and always will be. And I have a few more of their albums to rediscover on the back of this. But Out of Time feels like a nice way back in. Always.