R.E.M. - Perfect Circle

RADIO SONG

“This record confirms R.E.M. as true fossils. If I die tomorrow, I know my voice will be immortalized forever and nobody can do anything about it.” So spoke the sardonic Stipe, swept up in an unusual fate of success in the wake of the worldwide breakthrough of “Green”. But, deep down, that had only been a lucky transitional album. Because - as producer Scott Litt himself admitted - “it had some great things going for it, but it wasn't fully developed”. Now R.E.M., buoyed by a fanbase that had become truly global and by technical resources unimaginable back in the days of the glorious Oconee Street parties, faced the toughest test of their career: a triple (backward?) leap into mainstream rock, without losing the essence of their identity or their longtime fans. It would take a miracle. They needed to step into a new dimension. Out of time. “Out Of Time”. Three words that - according to Buck - sum up the band's whole philosophy: “We feel completely out of time and out of fashion. We're a case apart, deliberately on the fringes of the record industry's trends. It's music that stands on its own, with no temporal boundaries, even if it undoubtedly contains elements that can be traced back to the Sixties”.

“Out Of Time” is the breakthrough record, the one that irreversibly turns R.E.M. into something else. Sure, the signs of this evolution were already visible in the grooves of “Document” and “Green”. But now a wave was coming that would sweep everything away, putting the band back in play on an entirely different field, one where glory was guaranteed but danger lurked around every corner. And what better place than Woodstock - rock's sacred topos - to record the album that would mark the turning point?

Musically, the transformation can be heard in a sound that shifts from stripped-down to almost baroque, with the arrival of keyboards, organ, horns, harpsichord and a full string section, alongside the now-confirmed mandolin. R.E.M. are also joined by old friends, like Kate Pierson, singer of the B-52's, and Peter Holsapple, former leader of the dB's, who alternates between bass and guitar. “It was a much more accomplished work than Green”, says Scott Litt. “You can see the needle shifting from records full of guitars to albums with more complexity, more production, more arrangement.

“Out Of Time”, in fact, had arrangements with real strings, with 12, 14 or 16 parts in many of the songs, and violins, violas and cellos”. Litt's production, though ever more meticulous, still manages not to overburden the songs' framework, which retain all of R.E.M.'s best melodic flair.

Backed by this show of force and emboldened by his growing personal success, Michael Stipe finally comes fully out into the open. And he bursts into the Nineties laying bare all his anxieties and uncertainties. Personal ones, for the most part, but also tied to the fate of the planet. In the midst of the Gulf War, there's nothing left to do but return to the apocalyptic tones of “It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine…)” to turn a new, dark page of American history.

The world is collapsing

Around our ears

I turned up the radio

But I can't hear it

A line that sounds like a verdict, the one that sets the tone for “Radio Song” (the third “song” placed at the top of the record, after “Finest Worksong” and “Pop Song ’89”). “Hundreds of thousands of Americans protested against that war, but no one talked about it”, Stipe recalls. After a very sixties guitar intro, the song takes shape over sturdy funky rhythms, with an organ and a string section from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra building a powerful sonic scaffolding, while Stipe engages in an unexpected duet with Kris Needs, aka KRS-One, the booming rapper from Boogie Down Productions.

Check it out

What are you saying

What are you playing

Who are you obeying

Day out day in?

Baby baby baby

That stuff is driving me crazy

DJs communicate to the masses

Sex and violent classes

Now our children grow up prisoners

All their lives radio listeners

If Morrissey in “Panic” went as far as threatening to hang the DJs (“hang the blessed dj”) because their music said nothing about his life (“The music that they constantly play/ It says nothing to me about my life”), Stipe doesn't stray too far, railing against the musical mass-production churned out by radio, which traps kids in a logic of conformity and obedience to someone else's dictates (the music industry?). An excusatio non petita from a band that would soon be all over every FM radio station, or simply a proud claim to their own unchanged sense of difference? Either way, it's a bold opening statement, one that only serves to set the stage for the following track. Namely, the quintessential "radio song" of R.E.M., and perhaps of the entire Nineties decade.

LOSING MY RELIGION

How is an immortal hit born?

Maybe all it really takes is the right melody, nicely framed by the arrangement. Then everything else falls into place. Including even a lyric that's been universally misread. Because "Losing My Religion" - as Stipe himself would explain - has nothing to do with atheism or losing one's faith.

It's actually just an idiomatic expression, common in the American South, roughly meaning "to lose one's patience" or "to reach one's breaking point." In this case, because of a desperate, obsessive love affair. Even though, of course, the word "love" never actually appears.

Life is bigger

It’s bigger than you

And you are not me

The lengths that I will go to

The distance in your eyes

Oh no I’ve said too much

I set it up

That’s me in the corner

That’s me in the spotlight

Losing my religion

Trying to keep up with you

And I don’t know if I can do it

Oh no I’ve said too much

I haven’t said enough

I thought that I heard you laughing

I thought that I heard you sing

I think I thought I saw you try

The song opens as the most classic of declarations of powerlessness. A story of unrequited love, despite every possible attempt. Stipe once again reworks the vein of the beloved “Every Breath You Take” by the Police, to comment on a new emotional affliction, one that also blends in his condition as a star “under the spotlight.” And there's no doubt that this is the sole meaning of the song, even if, as it goes on, the author can't resist slipping in further religious expressions, as if playing on the ambiguity of the title — an ambiguity further fueled by the “hieratic” quality of the accompanying video, directed by Indian filmmaker Tarsem Dhandwar Singh, who would even be accused of blasphemy and see the clip censored in Ireland.

Every whisper

Of every waking hour I’m

Choosing my confessions

Trying to keep an eye on you

But if the term “confessions” appears deliberately ambiguous, the closing line, admitting that the illusion of love was just a dream (“just a dream”), reaffirms the conceptual heart of the song: a track brimming with despair over unrequited love.

The melancholy of the lyrics pairs beautifully with some of the most poignant music the Georgians ever wrote. Swept along by a wave of strings (synthetic ones, in this case) and an insistent rhythm, with Buck's mandolin weaving through Holsapple's acoustic flourishes, “Losing My Religion” floats on an enveloping melody, which Stipe sings with a contrite, desolate air. Waiting for a chorus that never comes.

It's “the song” of R.E.M. by definition, the trait d'union between their “alternative” origins and their destiny as rock stars, the anthem that — like it or not — will represent them forever, with that opening line “life is bigger” sounding almost like a prophecy: it was precisely from “Losing My Religion” onward that the Georgians' life became bigger. As Mike Mills explains: “There have been very few defining moments in our career, because it has advanced very gradually. If we really have to talk about a historic turning point, I think the closest thing to it is 'Losing My Religion'.” It would also become their biggest hit single (No. 4 on the US charts) and would win two MTV Music Awards. Paradoxical, for a band that, only a few years earlier, had declared war on music videos.

LOW

A funereal organ drone, a bass clarinet, the ticking of congas and a bleak string section, underpinning Stipe's mournful vocal. “Low” sharpens the pathos even further, sliding into a sepulchral, Velvet-style liturgy that builds to a fine crescendo. Another song of lost love, one that seems almost ashamed of being so. Because for Stipe, the word “love” always remains hard to say.

I skipped the part about love

It seems so silly and low

Low low low

Low low low

I skipped the part about love

It seems so stupid and empty

Down down down

Down down down

“It's the song that represents my feelings about love songs, about pop music,” the singer will explain. “Apart from ‘The One I Love,’ which isn't exactly a love song, ‘Low’ was the first time I used the word love in a song.” But the track wasn't new: long present in live setlists, it hadn't yet found the right arrangement to be recorded. A wait fully repaid by the final result. And not only for the effectiveness of the arrangements. Stipe, in fact, unveils new enigmatic and imaginative lyrics, like a relentless parade of images. Starting with the opening lines, which almost feel like a self-shot documentary filmed with a handheld camera.

Dusk is dawn is day

Where did it go?

I’ve been laughing

Fast and slow

Moving in a still frame

Howling at the moon

Morning found me laughing

Up and down, down

Low low low

Night suits me fine

And morning suits me fine

I’ve been so happy

Way up high, high

In between

An existentialist, autobiographical song, at bottom, hidden behind Stipe's usual metanarrative lexicon.

NEAR WILD HEAVEN

But "Out Of Time" is a two-faced record: half lost in the chiaroscuro haze of melancholy, half lit up by bursts of unchecked euphoria. One of its most celebrated moments is the bouncy "Near Wild Heaven", with its festive harmonies and a catchy, Beach Boys-like chorus. The contrast with the track that precedes it ("Low") is jarring, to say the least, and therefore, in all likelihood, deliberate. Especially since, as usual, the lyrics express something else entirely. And closeness to the "near wild heaven" of the title remains a pipe dream.

Whenever we hold each other

We hold each other

There’s a feeling that’s gone

Something has gone wrong

And I don’t know how much longer I can take it

House made of heart break it

Take my head in your hands and shake it

In this near wild heaven

Not near enough

Yet another song about betrayed feelings and disillusionment, then, entrusted for the first time (aside from the cover of "Superman" on "Lifes Rich Pageant") to the voice of Mike Mills, with Stipe stepping back and limiting himself to the backing vocals. "It sounds like the happiest song in the world, and instead it's very sad", Mills himself would later point out, almost as if wanting to defend it. "It's a pop song, but not a pop lyric. The tracks on the album, more than the state of the world, deal with the state of our minds and our hearts".

SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE

This time, no excuses. R.E.M. just wanted to have fun. Just like Cyndi Lauper's famous girls. In place of the sassiest popstar of the Eighties, there's the more seasoned but no less flamboyant Kate Pierson of the B-52's, another of the decade's iconic voices. The result is a duet that's as beguiling as it is disorienting, with that brilliant waltz-time string intro and that uncontrollable explosion that takes off over a guitar riff and cartoon-party-style backing vocals. Deliriously silly, as befits the finest tradition of the Athens-born B-52's, and as the video underlines with double emphasis, showing Stipe singing with a fake grin plastered on his face, a scarlet-clad Pierson writhing about in cartoonish fashion, and the rest of the band looking almost dazed by the incredible ruckus of men, women and children jumping and dancing.

A dish perhaps too rich for the earliest fans to digest, but tasty enough for those who, amid that kitsch saraband, could still catch the band's old nonsense irony now applied to the age of stardom. But, of course, there's not much to expect from lyrics that seem simply tailor-made for that vividly colored sonic patchwork, which burst into the record like a punch in the eye after the orchestral composure of the semi-instrumental "Endgame".

Shiny happy people laughing

Meet me in the crowd

People people

Throw your love around

Love me love me

Take it into town

Happy happy

Put it in the ground

Where the flowers grow

Gold and silver shine

What had happened to those rigid guardians of stars-and-stripes indie-rock intransigence? Had they finally, truly sold out, or had they simply lost their minds? The question would haunt them for a long time, unleashing a wave of scathing attacks from every quarter. From disappointed fans to envious peers, all the way to Mtv, which had always coddled them and now, with Denis Leary's monologues, took delight in mocking the song. The band itself would gradually tend to "remove" it from their repertoire, at most ending up joking about it, like when they turned it into "Scary Furry Monsters" in a bizarre performance alongside the Muppets.

And yet, "Shiny Happy People" would become Rem's first single to crack the British Top 10, much to the dismay of its detractors. Perhaps because, musically at least, it wasn't so foolish after all: "It's a great song, a quality piece of work," Mills would defend it. "The problem is that it's not easy to write positive songs, and when you do, everyone thinks you're mocking them, which isn't the case. It's a kind of joyful song, and as such it seems slightly out of place in our body of work. People go after it for various reasons. To me it's a beautiful song that I never want to play again!". And Stipe would go even further: "Sometimes it feels good to do something simple, and that's the feeling we had making this song. It's the happiest song we've ever written. The guitar line is the greatest melody I've ever heard. And the video... it's the most joyful thing I've ever seen".

An ode to joy, in short, to be taken as such, without asking too many questions, letting yourself be lulled by those cheerfully sixties atmospheres.

TEXARKANA

A return to the crossroads between joy and melancholy. But also a real crossroads, the one dividing two American states, Texas and Arkansas. "Texarkana" is the ideal contraction of the two (but also an actual Texan city, on the border between the two states). A name that evokes dusty, desert-like suggestions. Like those of a long journey in search of something, or perhaps simply of oneself. A journey that, by definition, can never end, and which can be read as the clearest metaphor for the human condition.

Mills reworks an original sketch, begun and never finished by Stipe, turning it into one of the album's finest achievements. A dreamy, poignant western ballad, sung by the bassist himself with vibrant pathos.

20,000 miles to an oasis

20,000 years will I burn

20,000 chances I wasted

Waiting for the moment to turn

I would give my life to find it

I would give it all

Catch me if I fall

The initial twenty thousand miles increase gradually throughout the lyrics, becoming thirty thousand and then forty thousand, like "the stars in the evening" ("40,000 stars in the evening"), the reasons for living ("40,000 reasons for living") or the tears in the eyes of the beloved ("40,000 tears in your eye"). An existential journey, then, one that pairs the euphoria of motion with anything but serene reflection, aware that it could all come crashing down at any moment.

"Texarkana" is one of those threadbare little gems that only R.E.M. know how to put together. It takes almost nothing: a lovely bassline, swelling strings, nostalgic harmonies in the bridge. Simple and beautiful. Breathtaking.

COUNTRY FEEDBACK

The other gut-punch you don't see coming. An abyss of lyricism, wrapped in grainy trails of feedback. Buck's pedal steel guitar sobs around a simple country progression, setting just the right mood – evocative and aching – for another magnificent performance from Stipe, who sings almost in a trance, letting rivers of free-flowing words pour out. It's no coincidence that he calls it one of his "vomit songs", tracks "thrown up" by unconsciously spilling out the thoughts and images floating through his mind. "Sometimes I just open my mouth and off it goes, there's the song on the page", he would tell Adrian Deevoy of «Q». But never was he as fully satisfied as in this case: "'Country Feedback' is my favourite R.E.M. song, among those we've put on record", he would reveal with evident pride. They're just words scrawled on a page, in no particular order. And yet they feel especially heartfelt, judging by how Stipe delivers the song, with an intensity bordering on the tearful, and by how he would perform it live, turning his back to the audience to hide his emotion, just as he had done six years earlier with "You Are The Everything".

The songwriter himself made clear – for once – what the lyrics are about: "It's a love song, but love seen from its worst side. It's basically about when you've given up on a relationship".

This flower is scorched

This film is on

On a maddening loop

These clothes

These clothes don't fit us right

I'm to blame

It’s all the same

It’s all the same

Another obsessive love, then, one that wears down body and mind ("you wear me out"), pushing towards self-harm and madness.

We’ve been through fake-a-breakdown

Self hurt

Plastics, collections

Self help, self pain

EST, psychics, fuck all

I was central

I had control

I lost my head

I need this

I need this

To soothe the pain and to forget the loss, every form of help is chased down, including a phone-sex line ("a hotline, a wanted ad") and electroshock therapy (though the acronym EST could also refer to the therapy devised in the Seventies by Werner H. Erhard to push individuals toward a better approach to life through group seminars).

In the end, though, all that's left is regret for what could have been and wasn't: "It's crazy what you could've had/ I need this".

This time the game of doubling and ambiguity misfires. It's Stipe himself, stripped bare in front of everyone, digging through the darkest recesses of his mind. Hence, probably, the emotion that comes through so vivid and pulsing.

Extraordinary too in its celebrated live version, "Country Feedback" is, in effect, the forerunner of that "E-Bow The Letter" which a few years later would reunite the now grown Michael, in front of the microphone, with his teenage muse, Patti Smith.

ME IN HONEY

The sweetest possible farewell, on an album that treats love almost as a pathology. Love for a child about to be born. Stipe conceives the song as an ironic, affectionate reply to his friend Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs, who had just recounted her anticipation of motherhood in "Eat For Two". In the lyrics of "Me In Honey", the perspective shifts: pregnancy is seen from the father's point of view, with all the anxieties and uncertainties that entails.

Baby's got some new rules

Baby says she’s had it with me

There’s a fly in the honey

And baby’s got a baby with me

That’s a part

That’s a part of me

Left me to love

What it's doing to me

Left me to love

What it's doing to me

What about me?

The blueprint is once again essential: a repeating riff, subtly psychedelic, a handful of chords circling around each other, dry drumming dictating the rhythm. But Stipe, once more duetting with Kate Pierson, manages to build on top of it another masterful vocal turn, moving sinuously to trace new, delicate melodies.

"Out Of Time" is the album that finally blows the R.E.M. phenomenon wide open across the globe. It climbs to the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and in several European countries, Italy included. It's the first record to break into the Top Ten with two singles ("Losing My Religion" and "Shiny Happy People"). It earns four platinum certifications, selling a staggering 18 million copies worldwide (an all-time record for the Georgia band). And, last but not least, it picks up three Grammy Awards in 1992.

It's one of those rare cases where commercial success rhymes with quality. Because "Out Of Time" is undoubtedly a great record, among the best R.E.M. ever made for Warner. But a mass phenomenon of this kind can't please everyone. Among the earliest fans, there will inevitably be some who turn up their noses, and even some who turn their backs on the four former Athens students for good. "With the huge success of 'Out Of Time' we massively widened our fan base," Buck observes, "and if we lost some of our old-school fans along the way, that's fine, it's just the way things go... It's something that happens after ten years of activity. Anyone who stopped loving us after the success of 'Losing My Religion' can go to hell. Time has changed R.E.M.'s energy. Now we enjoy playing quieter songs. Honestly, we have no interest in going back to being a cult rock'n'roll band." Berry is on the same page: "You can't be a cult band for life. I'm 32 now, and I don't want to be some legendary hero. We've already lived through that experience, both amazing and devastating at once. Our earliest fans need to go find another band to discover and worship... These days I like playing slow, quiet songs, which wasn't the case when I was 21. Now, instead of the sound of an electric guitar, I prefer the sound of an acoustic guitar or a mandolin."

It wouldn't always be like this in the future - just think of the return to rock'n'roll fire on "Monster". But the coordinates of R.E.M.'s new era had been definitively drawn. An evolution, no doubt, but one rooted in continuity - that of a band that had always, above all, known how to write great songs, melodies, choruses. A band that hadn't lost its identity along the way, or given in to the seductions of showbiz. Instead of moving to New York or Los Angeles, as any other rock star in their position would have done, Stipe and his bandmates had always stayed faithful to their Athens and to the small-town South.

Songwriter Billy Bragg, who happened to be in Georgia at the time, recounted how the news of "Out Of Time" hitting number one on the Billboard chart hadn't really upended the band's day-to-day existence all that much: "Don't get me wrong, they were absolutely thrilled about it, but they were more concerned with getting back to Athens in time for a city council meeting where they were debating whether to tear down the old fire station. They went to the meeting and invited all these wonderful Southern women, who'd come into town to defend that historic building, back to a party." Maybe that's the secret of R.E.M., too.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

06/05/2026