11.23.92
Time Magazine
It’s lonely at the top, and really depressing too. At least that’s the inescapable impression conveyed by Automatic for the People, R.E.M.’s follow-up to its 1991 critical and commercial smash, Out of Time. The record gets off to a somber start with Drive, a dirgelike number featuring lyricist and lead singer Michael Stipe, and [...]
By James Lien
10.09.92
CMJ Magazine
If you were to pull the Four Famous Boys From Georgia aside in a quiet place, and ask them about their favorite records, they’d probably all name the same twelve or so LPs by a few Anglo-influenced American artists (Big Star, Buffalo Springfield, Love’s Arthur Lee, Skip Spence and Moby Grape). And [...]
By Paul Evans
10.09.92
Rolling Stone
R.E.M. has never made music more gorgeous than “Nightswimming” and “Find the River,” the ballads that close “Automatic for the People” and sum up its twilit, soulful intensity. A swirl of images natural and technological - midnight car rides and undertow, old photographs and headlong tides - the songs grapple, through a [...]
By Phil Sutcliffe
10.09.92
Q Magazine
4 stars
Millions have been waiting on the new R.E.M. album, and almost none of them is barmy. It could have been reverence mortis time, but Automatic For The People turns out to be both aptly unfathomable and just the job. The contradictory elements of the band’s rock ‘n’ roll cravings and the [...]