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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Though R.E.M. titled a later album Monster, this 1991 smash was the true monster, with the little Athens, Georgia, quartet graduating once and for all from its jangling independent-rock roots. The confusion Michael Stipe communicates in the catchy "Losing My Religion" and the dark-and-dreamy "Low" hit the mainstream-rock audience when it was most primed for uneasy angst. (Nirvana's Nevermind was released a few months later.) There are also odd but successful experiments, such as ceding the opening "Radio Song" to rapper KRS-One (with Stipe playing the moaning straight man) and going peppy for the surprisingly non-sarcastic "Shiny Happy People". --Steve Knopper
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Cd > Popular Music > RockCD > POPULAR MUSIC > ROCK
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Though there is some debate about whether it is REM's best work, Out of Time is without doubt a classic.
Most people will have only heard of Losing My Religion, deservedly one of their biggest hits, but beyond that the songs that will stay with you just keep coming.
Happy songs are what the album is best known for and the jangling, uplifting pop of Near Wild Heaven, Texakarna and Half A World Away are melodic easy to listen to but with more depth than your average rock song.
The true quality of the album though is in the darker, more introverted songs. Low is a stripped down, rhythmic examination of the end of a relationship, looking back and climaxing in an emotive acceptance of moving on.
Country Feedback however, is my true favourite, an orchestrated ballad of missed opportunities, drenched in fatigue and a general feeling of being washed out and drained (You come to me with excuses/Ducked out in a row/You wear me out). The slow, simple guitar accompanied by strings fills the background while a wailing, almost atonal lead guitar melody weaves around the lyrics and sears its way into your brain.
You need this.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This was the first REM album I listened to and , although I have listened to all their subsequent albums and Document, Life's Rich Pageant and Green before it, it still remains the most pleasurable. Like most REM albums, it has multiple meanings but it has generally come to be regarded as their 'love' album. This effect is partly achieved by Kate Pierson's warm and lively presence on tracks like Shiny Happy People and Me in Honey. To me, this album sounds like a lost summer, the mandolins and baroque instrumentation mourning loss of love, loss of lots of things. Automatic for the People would wallow more blatantly in nostalgia on Man on the Moon and politics in Drive and Ignoreland and twisted the tunes even more than Country Feedback was threatening on OOT. Their ultimate twisted album to come was Monster, that picked up where Automatic's Star Me Kitten left off.
So Out of Time is a lot of things- KRS-One's funny, ironic rap that makes you think (Radio Song) a sunny surf/road album (Near Wild Heaven, Texarkana), a baroque meditation (Losing my religion, Endgame, Half the World Away), and something inbetween (Shiny Happy People). The likes of Low and Belong sound ancient and tribal, a perfect counter-evolution of the Beach Boy style harmonies. But there is nothing simple about the thought processes behind this album- it takes a lot of intelligence, a lot of avant-garde thinking, to sound this upbeat yet this sombre. Michael Stipe's warm, resonant voice is recorded in digital while the instruments are recorded by analogue. The cover art and inside sleeves are, Green to some extent aside, clear and attractive for a change. Natural images of plant-life and the ocean are juxtaposed with their treatment- rendered in artistic photography, cut up, their colour changed and reinstalled like the marble steps and peep show images displayed in the sleeve's cartoons. The album looks lovely, the sound is crystal clear and it resonates with that sense of being revolutionary yet innocent that fully emerged, blinking in the summer of the very early nineties, from the likes of The La's, The Stone Roses and, in their own, more directly destructive way, Nirvana. To any ordinary band, this would be, undisputedly, their finest moment, but REM, almost unique amongst the majority of bands, have always had the intelligence and staying power to evolve on their best ideas. A work of genius.
So Out of Time is a lot of things- KRS-One's funny, ironic rap that makes you think (Radio Song) a sunny surf/road album (Near Wild Heaven, Texarkana), a baroque meditation (Losing my religion, Endgame, Half the World Away), and something inbetween (Shiny Happy People). The likes of Low and Belong sound ancient and tribal, a perfect counter-evolution of the Beach Boy style harmonies. But there is nothing simple about the thought processes behind this album- it takes a lot of intelligence, a lot of avant-garde thinking, to sound this upbeat yet this sombre. Michael Stipe's warm, resonant voice is recorded in digital while the instruments are recorded by analogue. The cover art and inside sleeves are, Green to some extent aside, clear and attractive for a change. Natural images of plant-life and the ocean are juxtaposed with their treatment- rendered in artistic photography, cut up, their colour changed and reinstalled like the marble steps and peep show images displayed in the sleeve's cartoons. The album looks lovely, the sound is crystal clear and it resonates with that sense of being revolutionary yet innocent that fully emerged, blinking in the summer of the very early nineties, from the likes of The La's, The Stone Roses and, in their own, more directly destructive way, Nirvana. To any ordinary band, this would be, undisputedly, their finest moment, but REM, almost unique amongst the majority of bands, have always had the intelligence and staying power to evolve on their best ideas. A work of genius.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
if you only buy one rem album,make it this one.never have a band broken free from the'college band'shackles produced an album encompassing so many styles.beautifull,jangly and melancholic are words that spring to mind.from the funky 'radio song' to the emotional and profoundly massive breakthrough anthem 'losing my religion' to the ironic pop of 'shiny happy people',stopping of at the beautiful 'me in honey' and the touching pop of'near wild heaven' and texarkana'.And what makes this so great is the varying of the vocals.guest appearances from the talented kate pierson and krs-1 and the majestic mike mills.buy it!now!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Out of Time - 21 years old today!
It's 21 years to the day since 'Out of Time' was released in the UK & I have spent the day immersed in the original CD, then the 5.1 DVD-Audio version of this sublime classic. Read more
Published 2 months ago by KJ
this should be the classic rem album
although "automatic" if often considered the classic rem album actually this one is. not only does it have the iconic hit single "losing my religion" but almost all the other... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Hannah
Good product
Its a rare item in great condition! I really advise the purchase since its a great collectable. The cards are beautifull.
Published 6 months ago by Vitor M
Love it!
This is still - to date - my REM's favourite album. Opening song is amazing, you cannot mistake their sound.
Published 11 months ago by JR_82
REMs Finest
This was first REM album I bought and, in my opinion, their best. I quite like 'Lifes Rich Pageant' and 'Automatic for the People' but this is in a league of it's own. Read more
Published 12 months ago by John F
The moment when I lost faith in REM
I came to REM earlier than a lot of people but later than the real hardcore fans, the ones who go back to the earliest IRS albums. Read more
Published 22 months ago by lexo1941
the first wobble
This is the album that first did it for Mr/Mrs average Joe public, but two songs being played to death by tin pot lacal commercial radio did their bit for the massers Losing my... Read more
Published on 25 April 2010 by Stephen
just for one song
One of the greatest songs of all time is on this album. It also happens to be Michael Stipe's favourite REM track. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2010 by Mr. M. E. Igoe
Great CD
It is a brilliant CD the best REM CD i have listned, i like all the songs this is the order out of the songs i like best on this CD
1:Radio Song
2:Losing my Religion... Read more
1:Radio Song
2:Losing my Religion... Read more
Published on 12 Jan 2010 by D. Lincoln
US Music
Worth it for "Losing my Religion" and "Shiny Happy People" alone. I have the tape, which sits in the car for when I get angry with the radio.
Published on 30 Aug 2009 by WJR
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