Track Listing

1. Airport Man
2. Lotus
3. Suspicion
4. Hope
5. At My Most Beautiful
6. Apologist
7. Sad Professor
8. You're In The Air
9. Walk Unafraid
10. Why Not Smile
11. Daysleeper
12. Diminished I'm Not Over You
13. Parakeet
14. Falls To Climb

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13183 in Music
• Released on: 1998-10-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
After REM's somewhat ambitious 1996 album, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, failed to light up the charts, you might have figured the band would return to the rock-solid bombast of Monster or the consumer-friendly pop of Green. But REM have enough cash not to worry about commercial failure, and they've already been to the top of the mountain, so for now they'd rather explore its lush valleys and secret caves. Up is an atmospheric journey as impressionistic as Enya and as evocative as John Barry. Some critics have compared it with the band's delicate and emotionally revealing gem Automatic for the People, but Up is more ambitious and creative. Sure, most of the songs are pastoral, but they're undercut with drama and sonic experimentation. The melodies are generally spare, the beats sparse. Guitars flicker in and out, providing tension and dynamics, while quivering strings, layered keyboards, and washes of feedback colour the songs like textured lines of paint in an oil portrait. The only blatant pop song is the single "Daysleeper". The rest of the album ebbs and flows, each song a separate component of a complete artistic expression. The sound may be influenced by guitarist Peter Buck's cinematic jazz side project Tuatara or by Michael Stipe's celluloid excursions, but its source doesn't matter. What's important is that more than a decade after their sell-by date, REM continue to challenge and inspire. Things are definitely looking up. --Jon Wiederhorn

CD Description
The departure of drummer Bill Berry in 1997 no doubt unsettled his former R.E.M.-mates, who found themselves straddlingnot only creative, but personal crossroads. Rather than giving up, the remaining members of R.E.M. reinvented themselves and released UP, a stunning, eloquent album of dark vulnerability and experimentalism. The emotional disquiet Stipe evokes is nearly shocking in its plainspoken lyricism. Songs like the agonised "Sad Professor" and the wary, hypnotic "Suspicion" seem almost too naked for Stipe, who spent years cloaking his words in mumbles and misnomers. For the first time, lyrics are even included in the packaging.
"Hope" is a breathless, galloping piece of pseudo-electronica that raises the ghost of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" before ending in a heady roar of noise. The gorgeous jangle of "At My Most Beautiful" is pure poetry, an unabashed disclosure of Buck's giddy reverence for Brian Wilson. Although a drum machine is used at times (Beck drummer Joey Waronker and Tuatara percussionist Barrett Martin also guest on many tracks), an array ofdisparate sounds, from vibes to violin, infuses the songs with a newfound expressiveness. UP is unlike any other album in the band's long catalogue--a bold, brilliant spark of musical genius and genuine empathetic revelation.

Customer Reviews

Brave, brilliant
R.E.M. are always at their best when making music that is brave and unexpected, and this is their second bravest album. Only the "we hate our new fans" album Monster was braver, but this one is far superior.

Deprived of drummer Bill Berry after New Adventures, R.E.M. were unable to mix in classic rock songs on this album. But rather than try anyway, without drums, as they have done on Reveal, R.E.M. instead opted for an album of pure melancholy and beauty. It starts with Airportman - Stipe murmuring "great opportunity awaits" over eerie keyboard sounds, and if you can stomach this you will love the rest.

More than any other R.E.M. album, this a journey for the listener and an experience. It's an album about maturing, about troubled times and about coming out the other side. It's sad, mournful, reflective and incredibly uplifting. It makes Automatic For The People seem dry and emotionless by comparison. It's a response to all their previous work, full of references to earlier songs. There are 14 tracks, yet there are no weak ones; the album never sags. Each is beautiful and conveys a mood perfectly.

If Monster was a rejection of their new fans at the zenith of their fame, this (coming at perhaps the low point of their stardom) is a real treat for all the fans who follow the band because they love what they really are: unique, emotional, unpredictable.

'Up' lifiting 'Up' there on top of the clouds
'Up' ended up being not only my favourate of Rem's but also the most listended to record for the last 4 years. At first I remember thinking all the tracks sounded the same and the whole album was a bit annonymous (compared to previous offerings). However, it soon started to clear, like mist rising from the oceon, into one of the most beautiful records ever.

Highly reccomend listening to tracks like 'Hope' and 'Why not Smile?' on a very highquality walkman or hi fi, as the depth and texture of the sound is so amazing its almost edible (I still hear new layers of sound when I listen to it now). The beauty eminates from the lyrics original, expressive nature and in the experimental sounds that work so brilliantly, its hard to imagine how anyone could not love this. Not forgetting that each track has a distinctly subtle-yet powerful tune, prime example being Diminished, or Parakeets. This is a truly great record, and don't believe people who think Automatic For the People is the only good album, you'll miss out on this and other masterpieces like 'Out of Time'

A scapegoat falls to climb....
Be patient because it might take a while.
Obscure electronica and a woozy, sleepy jaded feel pervades this album. And mostly, nothing on here will grab you straight away. Certainly the stunning "At My Most Beautiful" might take your attention and the charming but REM-by-numbers lead off single "Daysleeper" will shake you by the hand and offer you tea and biscuits. But "Airportman" might just ignore you. Completely ignore you. But don't worry you'll be on speaking terms at some point.

There is something quite stunning about this album once you've spent time with it.
"Walk Unafraid" is defiant and mesmeric. "Parakeet" is beautiful. "Diminished" is paranoid and claustrophobic but perversely has a charming little chorus in the middle. This gives way to a sweet little acoustic hidden track which leaves as quickly as it arrives.
"Why Not Smile?" is simple and winsome. The closer "Falls To Climb" is somber and stately - the kind of track that would normally have Mr Buck's jangly Rickenbacker but this time is covered in electronic bleeps and synths. And it works well.

Down-sides? You need persistence, sunbeam, and if you've got 16 million tracks on your I-pod you can wade through at choice you might not want to cultivate it.
But if you appreciate the whole concept of an album then you'll stick with this.
There is a little bit of sleepyness - "Suspicion" is comatosed. Not at all offensive, just very sleepy.

But all in all, accomplished, intelligent and convincing. Worth a re-visit.