The first REM album that I heard was “Automatic for the People”. I can safely say that “Automatic for the People” was my induction into rock music. Even before I started to like Metallica or GnR or Nirvana, I love REM’s “Automatic for the People”. To this day I (and most other people) feel that “Automatic for the People” is REM’s best album ever and also definitely one of the top 20 albums of all time. Maybe it was the fact that they changed their style or that the albums theme was mainly centered around mortality, but after its release in 1992 “Automatic for the People” has sold over 3.5 million copies in the US alone. The songs of “Automatic for the People” were very catchy and most of my friend’s traded the lyrics in the tape’ inlay card.
After liking this album of REM so much, their subsequent albums were mostly disappointing to me. I didn’t really like Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi. I don’t even remember the names of the songs that were there on those albums.
Then came “Accelerate” in 2008. It took some time for me to get round to listening the album mostly due to my waning interest in “keeping up” with the music. It was towards the middle of 2008 that I actually heard the first few songs from Accelerate. Today, I listen to atleast one song from Accelerate every day in my car on my way to work. This album evokes the kind of response in me that Automatic for the People used to. I start singing and moving my head from side to side like Michael Stripe :-) . This is a really good album from them and going by the numbers, its doing very well. Rolling Stone magazine has called it the best REM album ever since the exit of drummer Bill Berry. And I agree!