R.E.M. – Monster (1994)

I picked this up for pennies at a boot fair, but to be honest, there have been numerous occasions over the years where I could have got it for a quid in charity shops.

Such is the fate of squillion selling albums, whose status as classics never quite materialises. It's noticeable, thirty years on, that when people revisit classic REM, very little from this album arises.

This much awaited follow up to 1992's Automatic For The People entered the UK and US charts at number 1, cementing R.E.M.'s status as the biggest band in pop at the time. But is it any good?

I don't remember it being praised at the time, nor compared favourably to Automatic, and on listening at three decades' distance, it doesn't impress. We open with the two minor UK hit singles (possibly minor hits because a million people had bought the album), What's The Frequency, Kenneth and Crush With Eyeliner both decent enough songs, but no more.

Most is mundane until the lively, but still quite average Star 69 kicks in. Strange Currencies seems to want to re-write Everybody Hurts, which it fails to improve on, and towards the end, it's only the raw rocking Circus Envy that gets the juices flowing again.

All in all, a disappointment. There's not much on this album to excite.

Link to full album

2* - a very ordinary effort indeed