When R.E.M.‘s Monster came out, I was overwhelmed by the adrenalitic What‘s the Frequency, Kenneth?
The album came out in 1994, it was the era of bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and somehow R.E.M. did not want to be excluded from this new trend.
So, after the planetary hits Out of Time and Automatic fo The People, they decided to distort the guitars to the max, tighten the melodies and strengthen the rhythms. Stipe abandoned the cryptic and intimate lyrics to write about psychologically and sexually deviant characters, monsters.
It is a completely different album from any previously released, raw and discontinuous, which still divides the critics.
I am among those who love it, but for the simple fact that I love rock.
The album is definitely discontinuous, the first five tracks are top-notch compared to the rest, with the exception of Let me in dedicated to Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix.
Monster is one of my favourite albums in the R.E.M. discography, as is the later and complete New Adventures in Hi-Fi, the band‘s last great album. The band would go on to release more albums, but they would not live up to the aforementioned and earlier ones.
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