Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Blender | |
| Entertainment Weekly | A |
| Los Angeles Times | |
| The New York Times | Mixed |
| Robert Christgau | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Time | |
R.E.M. biographer David Buckley wrote, "Automatic for the People is regarded by Peter Buck and Mike Mills, and by most critics, as being the finest R.E.M. album ever recorded." Rolling Stone gave the album five stars. Reviewer Paul Evans wrote, "Despite its difficult concerns, most of Automatic is musically irresistible." Melody Maker reviewer Allan Jones commented, "It's almost impossible to write about the record without mentioning the recent grim rumors concerning Stipe's health," in reference to the rumors at the time that the singer was dying of AIDS or cancer. Jones concluded his review by noting, "Amazingly, initial reactions to Automatic for the People in this particular vicinity have been mixed Psshaw to them. Automatic for the People is R.E.M. at the very top of their form." Ann Powers, reviewing the album for The New York Times, noted that only three of the songs on the album went beyond mid-tempo and said, "Only 'Man on the Moon' shines with a wit that balances R.E.M.'s somber tendencies." Powers finished her review by saying, "Even in the midst of such disenchantment, R.E.M. can't resist its own talent for creating beautiful and moving sounds. Buck, Mills and Berry can still conjure melodies that fall like summer sunlight. And Stipe still possesses a gorgeous voice that cannot shake its own gift for meaning." Guy Garcia, for Time, also noted the album's themes of "hopelessness, anger and loss". Garcia added that the album proves "that a so-called alternative band can keep its edge after conquering the musical mainstream" and that it "manages to dodge predictability without ever sounding aimless or unfocussed."
Automatic for the People placed third in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop year-end critics' poll. The album was nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards of 1993. It was also ranked #247 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
In 2006, British Hit Singles & Albums and NME organised a poll of which, 40,000 people worldwide voted for the 100 best albums ever and Automatic for the People was placed at #37 on the list.
Read more about this topic: Automatic For The People
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)