Wiki
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Release Date
1 January 1994
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Length
12 tracks
In contrast to the sound of R.E.M.'s previous two records, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Peter Buck described Monster as "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." He explained, "That's not what we started out to make, but that's certainly how it turned out to be. There's a nudge, nudge, wink, wink feel to the whole record. Like, it's a rock record, but is it really?" Mike Mills told Time, "On past albums we had been exploring acoustic instruments, trying to use the piano and mandolin, and we did it about all we wanted to do it. And you come back to the fact that playing loud electric-guitar music is about as fun as music can be." Stipe's vocals were pushed back in the mix.
Stipe wrote the lyrics of Monster in character. This, according to biographer Dan Buckley, "set the real Stipe at a distance from the mask adopted for each song." The album dealt with the nature of celebrity and "the creepiness of fandom as pathology". Buck said the album was a reaction to the band's popularity. He added, "When I read the lyrics I thought, all these guys are totally fucked up. I don't know who they are, because they're not Michael. I would say that this was the only time where he's done characters that are creepy, and I don't know if anyone got that. He was getting out his things by acting out these parts that are not him." The band noted that at the end of certain songs, they left blank choruses where Mills and Berry would traditionally sing harmonies so fans could sing along.
"The song 'Let Me In' is me on the phone to Kurt, trying to get him out of the frame of mind he was in," said Stipe. "I wanted him to know he didn't need to pay attention to all this; that he was going to make it through. I know what the next Nirvana record was going to sound like. It was going to be an amazing fucking record, and I'm a little angry at him for killing himself. He and I were going to make a trial run of the album. It was set up. He had a plane ticket. At the last minute he called and said, 'I can't come.'"
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