Customer Reviews

Automatic for the People (CD & DVD Audio)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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This is not only R.E.M.'s best ever album but is very probably one of the best ever albums. A classic from start to finish with excellent songwriting, musicianship and like a true classic, the whole is a great deal more than the sum of the individual tracks; change anything about this album e.g. track order, track additions etc and you destroy it.

The whole theme of this album centres on death and mortality and suggests that there may be more to life than what's here on earth and perhaps the afterlife is not to be feared after all. The album's tour de force, "Man On the Moon" even alludes to this, suggesting that such diverse personalities such as Elvis, Andy Kaufman, Mott the Hoople, Isaac Newton, Fred Blassy may all be rubbing shoulders and goofing around in heaven if they "made the list, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah".

John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame has also done a brilliant job with the orchestrations on a few of the tracks and most notably on "Nightswimming". The album ends with my favourite track, "Find the River" which has simply wonderful lyrics that very poetically describes the feeling of a soul leaving this earth to head for the afterlife and an expectation of better things on the other side.

Without a doubt, Michael Stipes' lyrics have never exceeded the heights that they attained on this album. No fillers here as every track is a classic gem. How this album didn't witn the Grammy for Album of the Year, I cannot understand but I suppose like most all-time classic albums, it takes time before the true brilliance shines through and for the mainstream to catch on.

This version of the album has both a remastered cd and a dvd-audio that plays in 5.1 surround sound as well. The dvd sounds excellent and even accentuates some parts that you just don't hear on the regular cd. There is also a humorous short documentary on the making of the album interspersed with funny shots of the proprietor of the restaurant that coined the album title.

Great album, great tracks and great sound plus video make this an excellent buy. Highly recommended.

If one album were to be fingered as R.E.M.'s masterpiece, this would be it. Automatic For the People is the most pensive, reflective and well-paced album of the band's career. With nothing really left to prove, R.E.M. could afford to please themselves first - something they've always done, to be sure, but usually with a sideways glance over their shoulder - and this time around, they run with it. The result is an album whose sum is much greater than the individual parts. The ratio of ballads to rockers is shifted heavily toward the former, which provides singer/lyricist Michael Stipe with the basic framework to stretch out lyrically. Mystifying tunes ("The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight", "Star Me Kitten") sit comfortably beside some of his most literal lyrics yet ("Everybody Hurts", "Man On the Moon"), while all are ensconced within creative and contagiously appealing melodies (did you happen to notice the sly four-note allusion to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" buried in "Sidewinder"?). As the saying goes, death and taxes are the only things in life that are unavoidable, but this record shuns fear and is full of acceptance. Human frailty hovers over the proceedings like the ghost of Christmas past ("Everybody Hurts", "Sweetness Follows", "Man On the Moon"), painting mortality in a light that is downright agreeable. Not many artists are capable of making you smile while contemplating death. Taxes may still suck, but on "Automatic For the People", R.E.M. provide evidence that our ultimate destination need not be something to fear. A Tom Ryan

I rode with my family to a department store in 1992 with my cassette walkman in my coat pocket. I was 17 years old, and I'd heard "Drive" on the radio and decided to check out some more R.E.M. I bought Automatic For The People on tape, got to the van, opened the wrapper, popped in the cassette, and -- all hyperbole aside -- I finally understood what people meant when they said music can change you. This album would not let me go. I wore the tape out. I've since bought this album on vinyl once and twice on CD including this CD/DVD release. For me, this is R.E.M.'s best album, and maybe my favorite record all-time.

There is not a single bad song here -- not even a slight clunker. From the strings on "Drive" to the lyrics in "Nightswimming" to the coda of "Find the River," there's never been an album that celebrates life and death and all points in between with such aplomb. The band named the album after the slogan for Weaver D's restaurant in Athens, GA, but that's not just a clever slogan. The whole album contemplates the one thing we're guaranteed, automatically, in this life, and that is it will all end, and the photographs on the dashboards and the people we know will fade, and we'll be scattered to the wind or be consumed by the earth. This album simply notes that there is beauty and grace even in death.

This two-disc release contains a repackaged (not remastered) CD, a DVD with two 5.1 mixes (Dolby 5.1 and DTS) as well as a stereo sound mix. The packaging does not contain new art, but there is an essay from Anthony DeCurtis that was not released with the album originally. The DVD also includes a documentary, lyrics, a photo gallery, and a discography. The main reason you should consider buying this release is if you have a 5.1 system and want to hear how they split the channels. The 5.1 separation is not as pronounced as, say, GREEN, on which they went so far as to separate the crickets on "You Are The Everything," but you will hear some pretty cool separations on Automatic as well. I was pretty impressed with the separation of instruments on "Try Not To Breathe" as well as the ethereal effect of "Sweetness Follows."

This is R.E.M.'s Days of Future Passed (The Moody Blues' concept album that followed a day in the life of a man from dawn to dusk). Here, R.E.M. contemplate the daylight to darkness of our little lives, and hearing this 5.1 mix opens up the album in a way I've never heard. If you have a good 5.1 system and set the thing up properly (and if you love R.E.M.), then you owe yourself the opportunity to hear this album again.

Excellent album, will go down in history as one of the greatest. The multichannel DVD-A is phenomenal, with it's 48kHz/24bit encoding. I don't see how 96kHz could be any better, this recording is crystal clear and well separated. Worth the price of admission? Absolutely!!!

This one of REM,s better releases in their on going success. The previous release wasn't what the fans were really looking for, the band made up for it in this release. Well done. This album is great.

Everything everyone else has said. But, I do have to add this one: The song Find the River ALONE could easily make this their best record. I lack the words.

this album has some fantastic high points. the 5.1 mix is very good. if you like rem and 5.1 music, you should probably own this

wonderful product / the best sounding version of one of the classic albums of all time. Well worth the money.

Automatic for The People is R.E.M.'s follow-up to their greatest commercial triumph, Out Of Time. The success allowed R.E.M. a bigger forum to get their message out. Automatic For The People finds the band exploring such subjects as suicide, euthanasia, Republicanism, lost stars, groupies and pop culture. The album opens with "Drive" which riffs on the David Essex classic "Rock On". "Try Not To Breathe" deals with the subject of euthanasia and is sung from the perspective of an elderly person asking for understanding in his request. "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" lightens the mood a bit. Michael Stipe has fun with the song singing it in a "Subterranean Homesick Blues" style, even affecting an Elvis Presley imitation. He can actually be heard laughing on the track. Things get serious again with "Everybody Hurts" in which they broach the subject of suicide. They could've sounded preachy on the song, but Mr. Stipe sings with such compassion and understanding that song reaffirms life. "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1" is a throwaway track and "Sweetness Follows" is a very pretty number. "Monty Got A raw Deal" is the first song on the album about a late misunderstood actor. It's about Montgomery Clift and is quite powerful with some stirring music. "Ignoreland" is a hard-edged rocker that speaks out against the indifference towards people created by Republicans in their White House years of the 80's and early 90's. "Star Me Kitten" is their ode to groupies and is done in almost sleepy sound. "Man On The Moon" is the second actor song and probably the most famous song from the album. It is about the late Andy Kauffman and served as the title for the recent biopic starring Jim Carrey. It's got a honky tonk sound and some good slide guitar work by Peter Buck. The album closes with two slow numbers. "Nightswimming" is heavily laden with strings and is about longing for days gone by while "Find The River" closes the album on high note. The band finally seemed to be comfortable in the spotlight and they created a personal and enduring classic. The previously unreleased documentary is good and the DVD also contains Mr. Stipe's original handwritten and typed lyric sheets.

I think this is their best CD. After this one I felt like Michael Stipe was getting a little too big for his britches and they were slowly going downhill from there.