R.E.M. - Out of Time (1991, Warner Bros.)

Ah, R.E.M.

Admittedly, with the exception of Accelerate and Live at the Olympia (if the latter counts), they haven't released an insane amount of quality material in the past few years. I'm unsure of the reason behind the blatant mediocrity of the past decade, but I never dwell on it excessively. I always think of them as four youngsters performing in dirty sneakers and cheap pants on Letterman in the wake of Murmur's release. I feel about R.E.M. the way John Peel felt about the Fall; I love them to tears, regardless of how long Michael Stipe wants to wear that detestable blue face paint on stage. So, despite a few clunkers, I can forgive them because they're some of the coolest dudes on the planet.

If Document isn't the effort superfans dub as the breakthrough ("sellout") album for R.E.M., Out of Time fills those shoes with ease. Moving with the momentum of the lyrically ambiguous and hugely celebrated "Losing My Religion," the band reached its peak in popularity, earning three Grammys as the album was catapulted into the top slots of the Billboard 200. But "selling out" is one very archaic and extremely stupid term. Purists can remain as persistent as they want in pooping on R.E.M.'s mainstream pinnacle, but that makes the album no less astute. It serves as one of their best and most experimental albums up to that point. There's no way all that vocal diversity and mandolin goodness could fit in well with material on Fables of the Reconstruction. All that eclecticism proved a sensible albeit brief route, seeing as 1992's Automatic for the People continued their success. But somehow they later fell off the wagon, and I don't think even Peter Buck knows what the hell happened (aside from the departure of unibrow'd and aneurysm'd drummer Bill Berry, which didn't exactly affect them musically, but inevitably caused the group to suffer an emotional blow).

Decade-long pothole aside, Out of Time is one of R.E.M.'s master works. Within the confines of my own opinion regarding the band's back catalog, it's only rivaled by their debut in sheer excellence and back-to-back listenability (well, mostly; "Shiny Happy People" and "Country Feedback" are arguably worth skipping once you've heard the album more than twice). The tracks shift moods pretty obviously - "Radio Song" is far less melancholic than "Low" - but most of the album retains a comforting vibe, as if it was made solely for relatable reassurance. It remains musically optimistic throughout; even "Endgame," an extremely wistful instrumental, sounds happy beneath the surface ("Half a World Away" and "Belong" also follow this pattern). "Texarkana" is the only song on Time that bears a resemblance to the band's early jangle pop sound, with Mike Mills lending his dulcet vocals to accompany dominating bass and Michael Stipe's harmonies. However, the best track on the album is introduced early on. Squeezed between "Low" and "Endgame" is "Near Wild Heaven," a captivating and almost disturbingly melodic ode to relationship discontent. Again, Mills takes the reins and succeeds in crafting a perfect pop song with a combination of harmonies and Bill Berry's piano. The final track, "Me in Honey," is only second in greatness. It features dreadful B-52's bouffant gal Kate Pierson* joining Stipe in a sweet-sounding duet about a baby-mama dilemma from the male perspective (in turn serving as a plausible response to 10,000 Maniacs' "Eat for Two," which represented the female point of view). The only faults on this album are the tracks I deemed skippable, and even those are mediocre and nowhere near god-awful.

I could babble on and on about Time's degree of quality. The album becomes increasingly relevant as I age and will continue to do so, despite the fact that I've listened to portions of it since I was a freshman in high school. It can serve as both a source of gratification and a contextual relic. For a person who was born at the height of the band's popularity and turned five on the brink of their comedown, it's a pretty sweet deal to have something as awesome as Out of Time to remember R.E.M. as they should be remembered.

But that doesn't mean the album cover couldn't have been better. I'd take the top half of Bill Berry's head over some street sign lookin' thing any day.

* I have to wonder: do I really hate Kate Pierson, or do I hate her because I was raised to hate her? After re-reading this five times, I still don't know.