R.E.M.
– Document
There’s a clenched jaw behind Document. It’s the sound of a band that’s had enough of being cryptic, but hasn’t quite decided if clarity is worth the price. R.E.M. didn’t clean up on their fifth record—they sharpened. Everything here hits harder, sounds louder, and feels like it was written with one eye on the news and the other on a cracked mirror.
Best of…
Gone are the sleepy mumbles and humid Georgia haze of their early days. Michael Stipe still slurs and spirals, sure, but now there’s a fire under him. He sounds like he’s reading manifestos through a megaphone in a wind tunnel. And behind him, Peter Buck drops his jangly armor in favor of grit and distortion, while Mike Mills and Bill Berry push the rhythm section out of the shadows and into a march.
Document isn’t a protest album so much as an exorcism. It doesn’t lecture. It prods and provokes. The production (thanks, Scott Litt) gives it weight without dragging the band into bombast. The result is something punk-adjacent, radio-ready, and still weirdly southern. It’s the moment R.E.M. punched through the college rock ceiling and found a bigger audience waiting with open ears and Reagan fatigue.
Choice Tracks
The One I Love
It sounds like a love song until you actually listen. Then it’s all teeth. Stipe throws the word “fire” like a brick through a stained-glass window. Still one of the most backhanded anthems to ever hit FM radio.
Finest Worksong
Kicks off the record like a factory bell. That grinding riff isn’t just for show—it’s the sound of gears turning, systems grinding down, and workers waking up. Anthemic but jagged. Hope and rage, coiled into three minutes.
Exhuming McCarthy
A rattlesnake shake of political sarcasm and ‘80s dread. The spoken word snippet? Cold. The typewriter? Even colder. R.E.M. doesn’t scream—they mock, and it’s way more effective.
Welcome to the Occupation
Short, sharp, and eerie. Buck’s guitar sounds like it’s playing peek-a-boo with some ghost of empire, while Stipe throws out lines that feel both ancient and urgent. A strange, quiet thunderclap of a song.
Document is R.E.M. grabbing the bullhorn with one hand and the guitar with the other. Political without preaching, accessible without compromise—it’s the sound of a band waking up and shaking the walls.