Twenty-five years ago this month, R.E.M. released what would become it’s biggest breakthrough album. Though the Georgia band has already graduated from college-rock darlings to major-label stars with the release of Green three years earlier, it’s 1991 album Out of Time took R.E.M. to new heights.
Fueled by hit singles Losing My Religion and Shiny Happy People,Out of Time went on to sell more than 4 million copies in the USA, doubling its previous high. And that’s just where the string began. Over the next three years, R.E.M. released two more quadruple-platinum albums, Automatic for the People and Monster. In the ’90s, when alternative rock was king, R.E.M. ruled.
On this week’s episode of USA TODAY’s Dad Rock podcast, hosts Patrick Foster and Jim Lenahan examine this phase of R.E.M.’s career, when the band released 10 albums for the Warner Bros. label and became an arena-rock mainstay.