Title: Being popular does not equal a sell out!
Product review: Personally speaking "Reckoning" is their finest hour but not many people agree with that, which is fine. This is the one which broke them big commercially and deservedly so as it is a fine piece of work and perhaps their most accessible to date. Do not take this to mean that this album is a sell out, it is far from that. What REM did was change people's perception of commercial or mainstream, in other words they bought the mainstream to them, not the other way around. Punters were ready for something different but not totally left field and this album was it. It probably disappoints the fan that was with them from the beginning that now everyone else was listening to "their" band and it wasn't so exclusive anymore, but that's life. Losing My Religion is the BIG song on this album but it contains a mandolin for god-sake and you can't tell me that Shiny Happy People is not done with tongue in cheek.If you don't own an REM record, you should start here.
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