Automatic for the People

Surfing the net at work today I found this fairly knowledgeable article which, at the time, celebrated the 15th Anniversary of R.E.M.'s masterpiece Automatic for the People.

Some key points from the article:

Automatic for the People is R.E.M.'s most successfully commercial album "With six singles, the record has been certified U.S. platinum (1 million sales) four times, and certified U.K. platinum (300,000 sales) six times....it spent 75 weeks on American charts, ....179 weeks listing in the U.K."

A great song nearly didn't make it on the album "Guitarist Peter Buck often has referenced the group's hesitation to include the track "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" This song taught me about Black Eyed Peas!"

Wikipedia has some intersting tidbits as well:

"In 1997 Automatic for the People was named the 18th greatest album of all time in a 'Music of the Millennium' poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. In 2006, Q magazine readers placed it at number 7. In 2003, the album was ranked number 247 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time."

"Winged Mammal Theme" was a rejected theme song for a Batman movie. I better down load it! I do recall that a song called Revolution eventually made it on to a really sucky Batman movie soundtrack. How do I know this? I have the movie on DVD and my lil bro had the soundtrack! I think it was an outake from New Adventures. The Smashing Pumpkins' song wasn't tooo bad...

-

I also recall reading somewhere that Ignoreland was really tough to record and nearly broke up the band? Sheesh let's rename it Yoko!

All this reminds me that I once lent Automatic for the People to a mate's younger brother. Never saw it again and had to buy another copy when I realised I really missed it!

Here's the video for Every Body Hurts (live), which is arguably once of R.E.M.'s finest work(ed) songs. Bill Berry wrote the chords. Which reminds me, what did the drummer from Motely Crue get on his IQ test?

Dribble.




Subscribe to REMurmur by Email! I'll never give your address to anyone ever. Except Peter Buck.

Leave a Comment automatic for the people