FEATURE:
Near Wild Heaven
R.E.M.’s Out of Time at Thirty
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WHILST one can easily name five R.E.M. albums…
PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Ockenfels III
that are classic and universal – I would say Murmur (1983), Reckoning (1984), Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), Document (1987), and Automatic for the People (1992) are obvious ones; there are a couple more that you can include -, many feel that there was this golden run by the band from Athens, Georgia that was sort of interrupted by Out of Time in 1991. Released after 1988’s Green and before 1992’s Automatic for the People, on 12th March, 1991, R.E.M. put out their seventh studio album. Maybe some feel the album is too commercial/less cult or not as raw or original as other albums in their cannon. As Wikipedia write, Out of Time took R.E.M. to the big time:
“With Out of Time, R.E.M.'s status grew from that of a cult band to a massive international act. The record topped the album sales charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom, spending 109 weeks on U.S. album charts and enjoying two separate spells at the summit, and spending 183 weeks on the British charts and a single week at the top. The album has sold more than four and a half million copies in the United States and more than 18 million copies worldwide”.
I really love Out of Time and, thirty years after its release, it has not lost any of its impact on me! Some dismiss the opening track, Radio Song; others do not like Near Wild Heaven, or Shiny Happy People; some feel that lesser-discussed songs like Low, Half a World Away, and Country Feedback do not get the attention they warrant. It is true that R.E.M. sounded very different on Out of Time compared to say, an album like Document. Maybe they were less political or innovative, though I refute claims that the band were consciously making attempts to be commercial or more successful. I feel Out of Time boasts some tremendous songs. Shiny Happy People is my favourite song from the album and, when it was released as a single in May 1991, it definitely lodged itself in my head. To tie in with the thirtieth anniversary of the critical highlight of the album, Losing My Religion, I dedicated a feature to it. I shall not go into depth regarding that song, but I did want to bring in a couple of features regarding Out of Time. Albuism revisited the album on its twenty-fifth anniversary back in 2016:
“In 1988, the band signed the first of two mammoth, multi-million dollar deals with major label Warner Bros. Records, who vowed to invest heavily in the group’s worldwide distribution and promotion. Featuring the noticeably more polished, radio-friendly singles “Pop Song 89,” “Stand,” and “Orange Crush,” Green (1988) was their first offering under contract with Warner Bros. and augured the mainstream breakthrough that was just a few years away.
Released in March 1991 amidst the burgeoning alternative rock movement, nearly 10 years after their classic debut single “Radio Free Europe” emerged, Out of Time proved transformative for the band. “It marked the transition from pretty big to really big,” Mills explained to The Guardian in 2014. “Although for us [fame] felt gradual. We were really lucky in that every record up to Automatic For The People (1992) and maybe Monster (1994), sold more than the one before it. So it felt very natural and organic, rather than this big avalanche of notoriety.”
Out of Time also demonstrated that mainstream success was indeed attainable for bands whose DNA and sensibilities were fundamentally indie, paving the way for early-to-mid ‘90s alt-rock megastars like Green Day, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins in the US, as well as British bands such as Blur, Oasis, and Pulp. In a 1994 Rolling Stone cover story interview, Kurt Cobain declared, “If I could write just a couple of songs as good as what they've written…I don't know how that band does what they do. God, they're the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music.” While some fans and pundits admittedly accused R.E.M. of compromising their signature sound and indie-rock cred with Out of Time, Cobain’s sentiments were echoed by the band’s many other musical peers, who recognized and celebrated their undeniable influence, inspiration and integrity, both pre- and post-Out of Time.
Also notable across Out of Time’s eleven songs is the absence of explicitly political lyrics, which have been all but relinquished and replaced by love songs, a nuance that Stipe acknowledged to SPIN Magazine in a 1991 cover story interview: "As a lyricist I shouldn’t be shackled to this image that every song I write has to be about the plight of the homeless or the environment. You can only go so far writing songs like that and get away with it. I can’t do it all the time, and I don’t want to pigeonhole myself into being a political folk singer in a rock band. Every song on this record is a love song. Anything political is just an undercurrent. That’s something we’ve just never done before. I’ve written love songs, but they were pretty obscure and oblique. These songs deal with every kind of love—except maybe love of country."
Unveiled as the lead single three weeks before the album’s release date, the poignant “Losing My Religion,” which eloquently examines obsession and self-doubt in matters of the heart, still stands as R.E.M.’s most successful and recognizable song to date, albeit not necessarily the strongest track on the album. Both the band and Warner Bros. never expected the song to become as ubiquitous as it did, but radio and MTV latched on and propelled the song to stratospheric heights”.
I know that people will mark the album’s thirtieth anniversary as it is an important release and contains more than a couple of R.E.M. classics. In their review of Out of Time, Pitchfork definitely found some positives:
“Of course, Out of Time is sometimes remembered as much for its stylistic overreach as much as it is for all that elegance. It’s the album with “Country Feedback,” the rawest expression of sheer remorse the band ever captured on tape, but also the album with “Shiny Happy People,” a song that to this day many R.E.M. diehards would just as soon will out of existence. On one side it’s got bassist Mike Mills’ most sublime lead vocal turn on string-swept “Texarkana”; on the other it’s got KRS-One on “Radio Song” wailing like the Big Bopper over a wacky organ lick. Somehow, making one of the fiercest rappers of his era sound like such a colossal clown remains the album’s most perplexing legacy.
A quarter century removed from its release, though, those missteps are easy to write off as endearing period trappings. If anything, the album now sounds more like the masterpiece it felt just short of at the time, a work nearly on par with its more universally regarded, nocturnal sequel Automatic for the People. Warner Brothers’ anniversary reissue gives the album the usual deluxe treatment, with a second disc of demos mostly of interest for the glimpse they provide into the band’s process. “Losing My Religion,” for instance, is presented as both a somewhat uncertain instrumental and as a lean, string-less rock song. You can also hear Michael Stipe not quite hit the high notes on an early version of “Near Wild Heaven”.
If you have not listened to Out of Time for a while then go and give it a listen. Sadly, R.E.M. split in 2011, but their music lives on and their legacy is immense! Maybe Out of Time is not absolute peak R.E.M., but I feel Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe are phenomenal throughout the album. Despite some mixed reviews and those who say Out of Time has its flaws, I feel it is important to make a fuss on its thirtieth anniversary. I really feel that Out of Time is…
AN essential and incredible album.