New Adventures in Hi-Fi [25th Anniversary Edition]

Most of the songs on NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI were recorded live, or during pre-concert soundchecks, on R.E.M.'s 1995 MONSTER tour.
R.E.M.: Mike Mills (vocals, piano, organ, Farfisa organ, Mellotron, keyboards, synthesizer, bass); Michael Stipe (vocals, synthesizer); Bill Berry (acoustic guitar, whistle, synthesizer, bass, drums, percussion); Peter Buck (guitar, banjo, mandolin, bozouki, electric sitar, bass).
Additional personnel: Patti Smith (vocals); Nathan December (slide guitar, guitar, tambourine, guiro); Andy Carlson (violin); Scott McCaughey (autoharp, piano, ARP Odyssey synthesizer, Farfisa organ).
Recorded at Bad Animals, Seattle, Washington; John Keane Studio, Athens, Georgia; Louie's Clubhouse, Los Angeles, California.
NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI was nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.
In the wake of the raging, guitar-fueled MONSTER, R.E.M. has made an album dominated by disconsolate ballads and acoustic instrumentation. NEW ADVENTURES has a stately, elegiac feel. It's punctuated by a few all-out rockers, but the overall mood is dusky and introspective. Michael Stipe's stream-of-consciousness imagery has developed into an incisive, poetic style of great power and resonance, from the religious overtones of "Undertow" (which reveals a Can influence) to the breathless travelogue of "Departure."
The opener, "How the West Was Won And Where It Got Us," sets a dark tone, with an eerie organ backdrop and a mournful piano providing a staccato riff. Punk goddess Patti Smith guests on "E-Bow the Letter," a wordy ramble that finds Stipe questioning, and ultimately denigrating, "this fame thing." A similar theme is explored on "The Wake-Up Bomb," a MONSTERish raveup that attacks celebrity star trips.
NEW ADVENTURES is loaded with musical surprises, including a zippy synthesizer that sparks "Leave," a campy instrumental called "Zither" and various discordant touches throughout. Lyrically and musically, R.E.M. stands its ground throughout, remaining as fresh and innovative as ever.