(originally posted on Facebook)
I'm not sure what to call this album based on the cover alone. The upper left corner says "R.E.M. NO. 5" and the top says "Document". Most places I've seen call it what I wrote in the title, but... I have no idea why I pay so much attention to details like this.
So this album contains R.E.M. mega-hits "It's the End of the World As We Know It" and "The One I Love". And it has a bunch of other songs. It's an easy and quick listen, nothing spectacular but solid. R.E.M. does kinda stick with that one familiar sound though which can get boring. 3 stars since I kinda liked it.
Anyway, following up Napalm Death with some easy R.E.M. was welcome. Though I liked R.E.M. more than I liked Napalm Death, I have no idea why I had to listen to Document before I died, but I completely understand Scum in the sense of the Big List. Document is just another rock album, nothing jarring or exciting except maybe by R.E.M. standards. Scum on the other hand opened a whole new sub-genre, albeit one that is total trash. It's albums like Document that make me wonder if the author of the list included some albums just because they contain one or two hits by popular bands. Albums like Scum convince me that this guy knows his shit.
This is real REM. That "Every Body Cries" junk was the signal that REM needed to sell a few albums to buy some new shoes. If you grew up with REM, then songs like Disturbance at the Heron House and Exhuming McCarthy and Oddfellows Local 151 were to be expected. They were also enjoyed. I loved this album and in my opinion REM had to try to live up to this one with all their later releases. And that was something they didn't always do.
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