Up (R.E.M. album)
Up is the eleventh studio album by American rock band R.E.M., released on October 26, 1998, by Warner Bros. Records. It was the band's first album without original drummer Bill Berry, who retired from the group in October 1997, and recorded as a three-piece. In his place, R.E.M. used session drummers and drum machines. The band has said that the album probably would have sounded the same with Berry, as first rehearsals and sessions with him had commenced, but his departure almost broke them and "hung over" on the resulting late recordings with drum machines  and session drummers like Barrett Martin and Joey Waronker. Details. "Up" saw R.E.M. move into electronic music-influenced territory after delivering "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" in 1996. Ending a 10-year relationship with co-producer Scott Litt, the band engaged the production assistance of Pat McCarthy, who was assisted on most tracks by engineer Nigel Godrich, Radiohead's producer. The single "Daysleeper" became a Top 10 UK hit, and "Lotus", The Beach Boys-influenced "At My Most Beautiful" and "Suspicion" were also released as singles. "There are certain things I set out to do," Michael Stipe noted. "Rough ideas  that I wanted to play around with. One of them was the religious-spiritual versus science-technology-modern-age. There are several songs on the record that, to me, address that. I don't know how other people are going to take them. It's taking off a little bit from 'Undertow' and 'New Test Leper', with the freedom of 'E-Bow the Letter' and 'Country Feedback' – songs that just come out. What I really wanted was more of that automatic, unconscious stuff… greatly inspired by Patti Smith and various others… Bert Downs said the record's about people falling  down and getting back up again. He said there's a lot of that imagery. I'm like, 'Really?'" Breaking with a tradition that stretched back to the band's 1983 debut, "Murmur", Stipe elected to have his complete lyrics included in "Up"'s CD booklet, a practice he would maintain on all subsequent R.E.M. studio albums. "[Mike Mills] was reading the lyrics," he explained, "and he said, 'These are really great – we should print them on the record sleeve.' It was a really good night and there were eight or nine songs on the wall. I said, 'Yeah, we  will'… I thought it was a nice way of saying that we are a different band now." R.E.M. subsequently admitted that they came close to breaking up while recording the album. Sales and critical reception. "Up" reached number 3 in the U.S. (with 16 weeks on the "Billboard" 200) and #2 in the UK, but didn't have the staying power of the band's more-recent albums, and thus had the band's lowest sales in years. "The things that we have to do creatively for the band may not be the most commercial things," Mike Mills observed. "That  isn't the point. The point is to keep it fresh and interesting and alive." "It will certainly sound strange to those who only own "Automatic for the People" and repeat-play the hits," wrote Danny Eccleston in a 4-star review for "Q". "Conversely, anyone who has a healthy number of R.E.M. records – let's say four – and plays them regularly, should manage to listen to "Up" without his head exploding or tossing herself off a tall building or any of the weird things people are meant to do when faced with music they don't quite understand. This  is R.E.M. after all. We couldn't even hear the lyrics until album five." Although R.E.M. initially intended not to tour for the album, after many successful promotional concerts upon the album's release, the band quickly arranged a four-month arena tour of Europe and America during the summer of 1999. As of March 2007, "Up" has sold 664,000 units in the U.S. In 2005, Warner Bros. Records issued an expanded two-disc edition of "Up" which includes a CD, a DVD-Audio disc containing a 5.1-channel surround sound mix of the album done by Elliot Scheiner, and  the original CD booklet with expanded liner notes. Accolades. In 1999, "Nude as the News" ranked the album at number 74 in its list of "The 100 Most Compelling Albums of the Decade". That same year, Australian magazine "Juice" ranked it at number 38 in its list of the "100 Greatest Albums of the '90s". In 2005, journalist Jude Rogers included the album in "The Word"'s list "Hidden Treasure: Great Underrated Albums of Our Time", whose inductions were chosen by celebrities. It also appeared in at least 22 magazine lists of the greatest albums of 1998. Track listing. All  songs by Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe, except "Hope" by Buck, Mills, Stipe and Leonard Cohen. The Up Side The Down Side Notes Cohen was not directly involved in the writing of "Hope" but was given a writing credit by the band due to similarities in melody and lyrical pattern to his "Suzanne". Studio B-sides. Two non-album tracks from the "Up" sessions appeared as single-only releases, as well as alternate versions of four album tracks.