Document - 25th Anniversary Edition [2 CD]

This new edition of Document features the digitally remastered original album, plus a previously unreleased 1987 concert from R.E.M. s Work tour. The commemorative release also adds new liner notes by journalist David Daley, with the 2CD package presented in a lift-top box with four postcards.

History

R.E.M. s fifth studio album, Document was recorded by vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and drummer Bill Berry at Nashville s Sound Emporium. The first of several R.E.M. albums to be co-produced by the band and Scott Litt, Document was also the band s first to go Platinum and includes the singles Finest Worksong, Its The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), and The One I Love, R.E.M. s first Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album peaked at Number 10 in the U.S., spending 33 weeks on Billboard s Top 200.

In his 1987 review of the album, Rolling Stone s David Fricke described Document as the fifth in a series of singular state-of-our-union addresses by America s most successful fringe band. Indeed, Document launches with a call-to-action, as Stipe sings, The time to rise / Has been engaged in Finest Worksong, bearing witness to history-repeating-itself tactics employed by the country s elected leaders, evidenced by the Iran-contra hearings, Star Wars missile defense saber-rattling, and a hyper-moralized Congress bent on restricting and regulating controversial language in the arts.

All you have to do is turn on the TV, said Peter Buck at the time, And you re inundated with complete lies from people who are supposed to be running the country.