R.E.M., Out Of Time

That's them in the spotlight, all right. Bolstered by an improbable, mandolin-driven four-and-a-half-minute pop juggernaut, Out of Time finally provided R.E.M. with a song that could be referenced should grandparents ever ask who they were.

While certain corners of the rock press had for years referred to the group as "America's Best Rock Band," Out of Time was the first moment R.E.M. ever sounded truly American. Pulling mostly from country and folk music, "Out of Time" contains some of the group's loveliest moments, like the pleading "Half A World Away" and the jangling, mysterious (and mostly wordless) "Endgame." More than any of their previous efforts, Out of Time feels like a collaborative effort; bassist Mike Mills assumes lead vocals on two of the record's stronger tracks — the dizzying '60s pop pastiche "Near Wild Heaven" and the hurtling "Texarkana" — and the whole endeavor would be unthinkable without the rich, red-orange vocals of fellow Georgian Kate Pierson, who here sounds more like a member of the band than a friend along for the ride. Though it may not have aged particularly well, KRS-One's appearance on "Radio Song" served to push R.E.M. into sonically unfamiliar territory, deepening the irony that the group's greatest chart triumph opens with an excoriation of commercial radio (all together now: "The DJ sucks!").

There are counterintuitive moves like this all over Out of Time: The hushed "Low," features Stipe singing in broke-down baritone against a creeping upright bass; in "Belong," he delivers a spoken-word narrative about the end of the world (and marks the first time in the group's history that a song lyric became an album title); "Country Feedback" forgoes a chorus for a series of devastating pleas.

The album closes with one of the group's best (and most underrated) numbers, "Me in Honey." As Pierson spins dizzying vocal circles in the air, Stipe — finding untapped reservoirs of conviction, sings, "There's a lot of honey in this world/ baby, this honey's for me." It's the sound of a man figuring out how to take what he wants, on his own terms.