It was probably overstated, but a few years ago the podcast 99% Invisible made a provocative argument for R.E.M.’s Out of Time as the most politically significant album in American history—not for its content, but for its packaging. The band, the story goes, was wary of releasing the CD in a longbox, the superfluous cardboard packaging that compact discs came in during the format’s early years, so an idealistic Warner Brothers executive pitched them on the idea of putting that wasted packaging to use. The back of the box would include a Rock the Vote petition lobbying senators to support a bill enabling citizens to register to vote at DMVs or through the mail. Those petitions flowed into Congress by the thousands, and the bill eventually passed, leading to a historic influx of new young voters.
The podcast’s numbers are a little fuzzy, so it may be a stretch to directly credit R.E.M. for the bill’s passage. But if nothing else, the story speaks to the band’s stature at the time. In 1991, R.E.M. weren’t just huge; they were important, and the Rock the Vote petition certainly wouldn’t have had the same impact if it hadn’t been packaged around such an enormously popular record. Out of Time gave the band their biggest hit single, netted them three Grammys, and eventually sold more than 18 million copies worldwide, numbers that insured the band the capital to do more or less whatever they wanted for the rest of their career. Along with Nevermind, released a half year later, it was the ideal every major label aspired to during their great independent-artist grab of the early ’90s: a blockbuster that multiplied the band’s following without ticking off existing fans.
Out of Time is a weird entry in R.E.M.’s discography, although in fairness the same can be said of almost every album R.E.M. released during that stretch. Numb from a year on the road, the band largely cast aside the usual electric guitars to fiddle with other instruments, most prominently the mandolin, which Peter Buck claimed he was still teaching himself when he stumbled upon the riff for “Losing My Religion.” Twenty-five years later, that single remains the most perfect pop song R.E.M. ever crafted, but it was hardly a fluke. The longing harpsichord on the album’s other great ballad, “Half a World Away,” is almost as enchanting, while the Beach Boys-bright “Near Wild Heaven” is almost overwhelming in its beauty and generosity. The whole record is flush with violins and cellos, revealing a range and sophistication that none of its predecessors had ever even hinted at.
Of course, Out of Time is sometimes remembered as much for its stylistic overreach as much as it is for all that elegance. It’s the album with “Country Feedback,” the rawest expression of sheer remorse the band ever captured on tape, but also the album with “Shiny Happy People,” a song that to this day many R.E.M. diehards would just as soon will out of existence. On one side it’s got bassist Mike Mills’ most sublime lead vocal turn on string-swept “Texarkana”; on the other it’s got KRS-One on “Radio Song” wailing like the Big Bopper over a wacky organ lick. Somehow, making one of the fiercest rappers of his era sound like such a colossal clown remains the album’s most perplexing legacy.
A quarter century removed from its release, though, those missteps are easy to write off as endearing period trappings. If anything, the album now sounds more like the masterpiece it felt just short of at the time, a work nearly on par with its more universally regarded, nocturnal sequel Automatic for the People. Warner Brothers’ anniversary reissue gives the album the usual deluxe treatment, with a second disc of demos mostly of interest for the glimpse they provide into the band’s process. “Losing My Religion,” for instance, is presented as both a somewhat uncertain instrumental and as a lean, string-less rock song. You can also hear Michael Stipe not quite hit the high notes on an early version of “Near Wild Heaven.”
Much more worthwhile is a third disc included on pricier versions of the reissue: a live, Unplugged-esque performance for a West Virginia public radio broadcast. Since the band had opted against a big tour behind Out of Time, they sound refreshed and just a little under-rehearsed. Stipe’s reverential, beat-poetry recitation of KRS-One’s “Radio Song” verse aside, the band goes out of their way not to take themselves too seriously. Mills leads a demure rendition of the Troggs’ flower-power standard “Love Is All Around,” then Billy Bragg and Robyn Hitchcock join in to bring some honky-tonk rowdiness to a giddy cover of Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s “Dallas.” R.E.M. were one of the biggest bands in the world, but even coming off of their most high-minded record to date—and performing on a day that West Virginia’s governor had christened “R.E.M. Day,” at that—they still sounded like the same gang of old friends who drunkenly recorded a jingle for their favorite barbeque spot for an early B-side. The weight of their newfound importance would eventually take a toll on the group. It hadn’t yet.
