Automatic for the People [25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition]

From start to finish, it’s a perfect mix of sombreness, playfulness, anger and melancholy, with one moment of great mass communication – Everybody Hurts, a song whose power is undimmed by constant exposure. A stunning live disc repositions Drive as a stomping rock song, and showcases the playful side of the group with covers of Love Is All Around (pre-Four Weddings) and Funtime.

The live disc's souped-up version of Drive notwithstanding, what comes across is that AFTP is at heart a sublime collection of folks songs. ... A winning package. [Dec 2017, p.103]

Not many albums still stop you in your tracks after 25 years of listening. This one does. It’s a pure masterpiece, from beginning to end.

The 25th anniversary reissue offers a disc of live tracks, and a full set of demos and early versions--interesting historical documents for the completest. But the real joy of the reissue is how it prompts those of us who have moulded ourselves around it, or had it play for years almost subconsciously in the distance, to reconsider its place in our lives: to hold it up to the light and see that it is miraculous.

REM’s brooding masterwork. ... It’s an album of shadows and contrasts: “Drive”, for instance, opens proceedings on the cusp of adulthood, imparting youthful rebel spirit with a warning sense of duty for the future, before “Try Not To Breathe” offers an extraordinary image of an old person eager to leave the world to the young.

This 25th anniversary deluxe edition includes a collection of curious demos and live takes. ... The record itself remains a masterpiece, a cross-generational smash hit from which they'd never truly recover. [Dec 2017, p.115]

The band opened the vaults for this reissue to give us a sparkling remaster, a sturdy live set from the 40 Watt Club (though it hardly begs for canonization like 2009’s revelatory, rarity-packed Live at the Olympia), and a juicy third disc of demos. Some of these are pretty fun.

It is a stupendous work of art. R.E.M. are essentially a band that work on an emotional level, and this is their most emotionally articulate record: sad and painful, but also funny, raging, exultant, yearning. That it was an enormous hit is a slight distraction, 25 years on. But the music wins out.

This material doesn't feel dated, but rather timeless as the political atmosphere is even more charged a quarter of a century later. The reason for fans to get this new deluxe edition, however, has more to do with the bonus discs.

Moments of levity (“The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” and “Man On The Moon”) and righteous anger (“Ignoreland”) cleared the sinuses but otherwise, the tone of Automatic is marked by doughy pressure and woozy beauty. The remastered version of the LP brings that to the fore as well as emphasizing the skin-tingling intimacy of Michael Stipe’s vocals throughout. ... This expanded edition of the album (three CDs and a blu-ray disc featuring all the promotional videos and the album mixed in Dolby ATMOS) offers a more fully-rounded understanding of Automatic.

If the demos collection presents the fables of R.E.M.’s deconstruction, its concert-disc complement—capturing the only show they performed in support of Automatic for the People—is an essential document of their onstage chemistry. ... It’s an album that—in surveying a fraught political landscape, the fragility of our mental health, and the fate of our planet—still speaks emphatically to our current condition.

The self-lacerating starkness of "Drive" still freezes the blood, while at the other end of the emotional scale, "Nightswimming" finds solace in snapshots of a lost summer. [Dec 2017, p.42]

[Disc Two is] a winning set that sounds surprisingly clear and crisp for a live recording. ... Disc Three is meant for Automatic diehards, but fans of all stripes will find plenty to enjoy. ... This is an album of elegant simplicity, full of grand, sweeping gestures.

Automatic impresses in its scope and daring. Certainly, the drone-like Drive was a surprise choice for first single and opening cut, as if R.E.M were wilfully avoiding the rock god game.

A impressively remastered album (including a new mix in the audiophile-friendly Dolby Atmos format), a decent live set. .... Remember REM any way you want, but Automatic For The People is a good if ultimately maudlin one.