R.E.M. - Out of Time (1991)

1) Radio Song; 2) Losing My Religion; 3) Low; 4) Near Wild Heaven; 5) Endgame; 6) Shiny Happy People; 7) Belong; 8) Half a World Away; 9) Texarkana; 10) Country Feedback; 11) Me in Honey

Wildly flailing in every direction, with numerous sound experiments and genre exercises. And yet, somehow this became a hit. And moreso, a real classic in general.

Key tracks: "Losing My Religion", "Belong", "Country Feedback"

What a bizarre album to become the one that turned R.E.M. into one of the biggest bands on Earth. Out of Time is a borderline messy jumble of different styles and various kinds of experiments, a band at the crossroads of development with the intent to go in all directions. It had two big hit singles. One of them is not just one of the most legendary songs of the 90s but a completely timeless, iconic classic -  an otherwordly confessional with a chorus so subtle that it doesn’t even really exist, a song that genuinely sounds magical and unique. The other is a silly novelty bubblegum pop song. Not that the rest of the album is any more consistent. There is a general trend of the band picking up acoustic instruments throughout the album but between spoken word jams, gentle instrumentals, funk rock, saccharine pop songs and heartrending laments, Out of Time never stays still in one place.

The wild movements signal a desire to grow, and Out of Time is a major milestone for R.E.M. in that regard. This is where the pieces really begin to fall in place, after the groundwork that Green paved. Green - itself a very varied album - generally acts as Out of Time’s blueprint. The lush sound that appeared in Green are taken even further, the band’s arrangements growing ever more detailed and masterful, and the taste for a less hurried tone that Green foreshadowed is now the norm. But a lot has changed within the band as well, with everyone more confidently rising into the spotlight and exercising their own skills and creativity: expanded instrumentation, casual role swaps and general do-anything mentality give Out of Time a richer palette and really highlights the band members. This is especially true for the two Mikes. Mills had sung the lead vocal on a few covers prior to now, but on Out of Time he gets two R.E.M. originals to sing on prominent display. The honey-sweet, effortlessly pretty “Near Wild Heaven” even became a single, which further underlined the band’s confidence in their own changes. The other song, the americana rocker “Texarkana”, arguably shows off Mills’ vocals even more confidently.

It’s Stipe, though, who undergoes the greatest metamorphosis on Out of Time. Where he once mumbled his way through the songs and intentionally hid his voice among the instruments, he’s now embraced the microphone and pours his heart out into his vocals, with a sharpened lyrical pen where the words deserve to be heard through the new clarity in his voice. Throughout the album he channels a gamut of emotions from heartrending to lighthearted and always comes across reaching personally to the listener. It’s on Out of Time where Stipe becomes one of the greatest frontmen in rock. R.E.M. were about to take over the world and Stipe sounds like he’s ready for the role.

The jumble of sounds is the result of the band being high on their newly-strengthened confidence and the fearlessness that results from it, but it’s precisely that confidence which makes such an odds and sods collection work so well. R.E.M. have discovered new peaks to their creativity and are riding them with abandon, putting everything of themselves behind each song and revelling in the results. Credit to the production and general background work where it’s due: cohesive sound elements run through Out of Time to make funk rock anthems, existential crises and shiny happy pop songs best friends, and the carefully thought out sequencing is genuinely experience-enricheningly good here. The rich, warm tones running throughout production also make the album sound instantly welcoming and full of heart, and it’s used to back one of R.E.M.’s greatest set of songs. That statement includes the instrumental interlude “Endgame” in all of its serenity as well as the pariah singalong “Shiny Happy People”, which is a genuinely brilliant song where it doesn’t matter whether it’s meant to be sarcastic or not, it’s just so heartwarmingly positive regardless. “Losing My Religion” – rather obviously – towers over everything: it’s a one of a kind of a song, a truly jawdropping piece of music where everything, from the arrangement to the melodies, the lyrics, the performance and the sheer emotion it evokes is spellbinding. Everything considered though, the rest of the album isn’t overshadowed by it at all. “Country Feedback” is the other bonafide classic of the set, as Stipe purges his guts over a desert dirge ballad in a fashion that sticks to your mind for good, delivering the downright rawest performance. The disarmingly gorgeous mood moment “Half a World Away” and half spoken word, half wordless soar “Belong” have always been big personal favourites out of the less mentioned songs, and “Texarkana” suits Mills’ softer vocal tone so perfectly that it could have been a perfect launchpad for a solo career.

Despite all that, Out of Time still feels almost understated and underspoken about, but you can understand it in a way: it doesn’t have a consistent stylistic angle of much of the band’s more praised works, and outside “Losing My Religion” and “Country Feedback” it lacks in the canonised standout moments. It has all the characteristics of a transitional album, the theoretically awkward step from the 80s indie heroes to Automatic for the People’s acoustic laments. Yet every single song has been crafted with such love and dedication that it transcends that notion and becomes a fully-fledged, fully-fleshed piece of great work on its own, defined by its wild swings everywhere but always keeping the heart in the same place. It’s a slightly bizarre, messy album, but it’s wrapped in homey warmth and wonderful tunes. It’s not an obvious classic perhaps, but nonetheless a brilliant moment for R.E.M.

Out of Time’s name is rather literal - it was chosen when the band was running out of time to name the album as it was about to go to print - but its more abstract reading is perfect for the album. There’s a timeless quality to the songs contained within, where they don’t feel like they’re tied to any particular decade: both thanks to the still-strong production as well as the songs that themselves are outside any kind of temporal bubble (apart from perhaps “Radio Song”, which is great fun and genuinely infectious, but also very early 90s). It’s a beautiful album and completely evergreen, ageless and nothing like anything before or since – utterly unique without even trying to reach for it. It’s the album that raised R.E.M. into well deserved stardom, the one where they certified their status as one of the greatest of all time and it contains one of the greatest songs ever recorded. The band made better albums, sure, but that’s incredible in its own self. Out of Time is nothing short of a classic.

Rating: 9/10