R.E.M. – Automatic For The People LP (180g Yellow Vinyl) Online

25 years ago, firmly ensconced as U.S. rock royalty, R.E.M. unleashed the album many count as their defining moment in Autumn 1992. The legendary Automatic For The People stood alone at a time when many of the other great alternative acts had packed up, filling any void with the likes of Drive (referencing both David Essex s Rock On and any of Queen s stop-start stadium fillers), the Andy Kaufman homage Man On The Moon, the oblique The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight and the deliberately heavy angst of Everybody Hurts, a song that managed to appeal to woebegone adolescents and wannabe-young-again oldsters, with John Paul Jones  orchestral arrangement increasing the emotional overload.

Whatever the formula, it certainly worked: sales off the scale, constant airplay, non-stop five-star reviews, and bigger and bigger live shows. Not too shabby when one considers the album was conceived during a dark time, and dealt with genuinely traumatic reflections on suicide, mortality and the harsh fact that everyone is going to reach the finishing line at some point.