Document was the album that helped elevate R.E.M. from kings of college radio to the mainstream. Buoyed by the catchy (and misunderstood) song "The One I Love", Document hit number 10 on the album charts. That's not too bad for an album made up of some highly political songs and some very non-commercial ones. "Finest Worksong" & "Welcome To The Occupation" open the album on a politically charged and powerful note. "Exhuming McCarthy" starts off with the sounds of a typewriter and then slides into pounding Bill Berry drumbeat and jangling Peter Buck guitar. "Disturbance At The Heron House" has a fine Michael Stipe vocal while "Strange" is an abbreviated number that has some good backup singing from Mike Mills in an almost doo wop style. "King Of Birds" has a deep south, r&b feel to it. "Lightnin' Hopkins" and "Oddfellows Local 151" are the strangest songs on the album with the later being drenched in feedback. "The One I Love" became the first song by the band to gain major radio-play and actually peaked at number 9 on the charts. On the surface, the song seems like a love song, but it is really a barbed attack. "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" is the centerpiece of the album though. Michael Stipe sings at a breakneck speed and the song is one of the best of the 80's. Many ardent R.E.M. fans dismiss this album as the band selling-out, but that is hardly the case. R.E.M. remained true to their roots and actually released a typically non-commercial album that became a commercial success due to people finally realizing the greatness and talent of the band. They show that you can become superstars on your own terms.

This is by far my favourite R.E.M. album. "Document", released in 1987, gripped my senses the first time I heard it and hasn't let go. It is one of R.E.M.'s angriest albums, politically charged and quite chaotic. The subtitle "File Under Fire" is quite appropriate - fiery images permeate through the album. The very beginning of the first track, "Finest Worksong", conveys a feeling of industry and steel, with Michael Stipe's (now quite intelligible) vocals adding a sense of urgency. This song, and the remainder of the first side (with the exception of the interlude-like "Strange") is highly political. The brooding, disturbing "Welcome to the Occupation", the hectic "Exhuming McCarthy" and the Orwellian fable "Disturbance at the Heron House" are all short, fast and angry protests against the strong tide of political conservatism that dominated in the Reagan era. The song that encapsulates the fire and chaos is the manic "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine). With abstract and often nonsensical lyrics spewing from Michael Stipe's mouth, it is both humorous and deadly serious. Side two is also dominated by images of fire, but the political theme has gone. "The One I Love", R.E.M.'s first big hit and much misinterpreted anti-love song is searing, burning itself into your mind. "Fireplace" is one of R.E.M's most underrated (and one of my all time favourite) songs. It's a delightful, anarchic song of carefree, reckless abandon which also manages to sound subversive. The brilliance of "Document" (as is the case with most of R.E.M's music) is that subversion does not necessarily mean taking up arms. It starts with yourself - you have to start changing the blandness and conformity in the world by revolutionising your own life (which is what songs like "Finest Worksong" and "Fireplace" are all about). The album finishes with "Lightnin' Hopkins" (a series of camera directions), the sublime, gorgeous and wonderful ballad "King of Birds" and the disappointing "Oddfellows Local 151" which, in my opinion, just drags and really goes nowhere. However, it doesn't ruin the album - "Document" is superb. R.E.M.'s music is always full of integrity; it challenges you to think and also to act. This album, a negative reaction to the politics of the day, conveys the ultimate message of overcoming adversity, whether in the world or in your lives. And the songs are great too! That's the ultimate bonus!

Considering that this was R.E.M.'s strongest collection of songs since their debut, there's a strange sense of uncertainty about the whole project.

You listen to the first four cuts and think "Aha, another political statement from the band that brought you Lifes Rich Pageant the previous year." Taken together, "Finest Worksong," "Welcome to the Occupation," "Exhuming McCarthy" and "Disturbance at the Heron House" sound very much like a sort of State of the Union address. In each cut you get a different take on America - the dignity of its workers, the evils of its interference overseas, its historical insistence on conformity and its domestic paranoia. "McCarthy" has a few awkward moments, but overall the music displays this band's usual mastery of style and technique; these songs move. Then there's a cover version of Pylon's "Strange" and the whole thing breaks apart.

I can't help thinking that the interruption is deliberate. R.E.M. had played plenty of covers before, and even recorded a few, but this was almost the first time they put one on a regular album release, and it's about as close to punk as they had come. (There was "Superman" the previous year, but that one came at the end of the collection rather than the middle, and it was an obvious throwaway.) "Strange" is like a signal to the listener, saying "Whatever you think you've been hearing, that's not it." Then the band proceeds to prove it - the rest of "Document" has nothing to do with political commentary.

"The One I Love" and "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" both scored big on the singles charts, and I can't imagine why, since they're both among the slipperiest hits ever recorded. They're both terrific, mind - "One I Love" introduces a classic R.E.M. riff and a devastating lyric, and "End of the World" is both nice poetry and enormous fun. But the first of these songs doesn't mean what you think it does, and the second doesn't really seem to mean anything at all. Why in the world did the audience take to them so strongly? (I know, I know, they have good beats and you can dance to them, but still...)

The next two numbers are more R.E.M. American grotesquerie a la "Fables of the Reconstruction" - "Fireplace" is a pounding rock waltz about preparations for a hoedown that turn destructive and "Lightnin' Hopkins" is a vicious bluesy stomp that has about as much to do with the old bluesman of the title as the Ramones do (which may be more than I think, actually). And then "Document" closes out with a couple of straight-ahead surrealist nightmares, "King of Birds" and "Odd Fellows Local 151," with music straight out of a Ken Kesey Acid Test and lyrics by Salvador Dali or something. They wouldn't have been out of place on R.E.M.'s dada debut, "Murmur" - the music is folksy but driven, the lyrics are confusing but significant, the vocal and playing style shouldn't work but they do. It feels like you should be able to dismiss this stuff as self-indulgent, but you can't. It means something, dammit.

Taken all together, "Document" is about as disorienting as a game of blind man's bluff. It lurches from simple tunesmithing to scorching rock to something unidentifiable that drifts right through your head and back out into the sky. And here's a thought - in 1987, R.E.M. faced a number of important decisions, like what record company to sign with and whether to tour Europe. In short, they were getting famous, and I wonder if "Document" is the sound of a band trying to figure out whether to give its fans some good old-fashioned pop or stick with its twisted art-house roots.

Now, that's the kind of struggle can result in great music, when it doesn't produce a nervous breakdown instead. Fortunately, by the time R.E.M. had to face this pressure, they had been playing together for going on ten years and evidently trusted each other. So they could look outward and inward both at once, knowing that they had each other's backs. Every time Peter Buck bangs out a chord, or Bill Berry and Mike Mills trade backing vocal lines, or Michael Stipe hollers "Listen to me!", you can hear the band's defiance and excitement in the face of the world's demands.

"Document" is a summing up of R.E.M.'s career to that point, an important step to take before any giant leap. They may have felt fragmented, pulled in different directions, like that glass sculptor on the cover whose body is shattered in a million pieces by his materials, but there's no doubt that they were still in control of each piece. The following year they signed with Warner Brothers and handed in a collection of, as they said, "stupid pop songs." They'd earned the right.

Benshlomo says, The past is a springboard from which to jump, eyes shut, into the future.

Sorry. I know that probably isn't the real lyric. Sadly for me, I don't occupy the mind (or the time) of Michael Stipe. Which is unlike the majority of reviewers who have taken the time to review this album. Magically, most everybody knows the secret hidden meanings behind songs such as "The One I Love" and "Oddfellows Local 151." How is everyone so in the know? What do I have to do to get in this vaunted group? I'm dying to know. Perhaps could it be many are merely regurgitating what they read in music magazines, see on TV, hear from friends, etc.,etc. Newsflash 2000: REM song "One I Love", not really love song. Story at 11.

But I digress. I don't think I can interpret Stipe's lyrics anyway. So I won't bother to try. I never was much of one to listen to a song and understand all the lyrics. Often, years go by while I'm making up my own words until someone catches me singing (badly) the wrong words and laughs and makes fun of me until I cry.

But that's neither here nor there. To me, REM strives at what most of the other alternative bands were likewise reaching for. A place beyond ordinary rock music. It might sound a bit silly to say, but transcendence. Be that in the form of a political message, a social message, or a spiritual message. It's the same reason why this band and U2 and precious few others survived the early 90's barrage of alt rock music. Because ultimately, we want to hear music that actually has a message and means something to not only the audience but also the performer. At least, I believe some of us do. Which doesn't help to explain Limp Bizkit. Maybe there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Maybe from time to time we need a pile of redundant stupidity to keep us in check.

In the end everyone finds their own meaning in songs. I'm not going to tell you this song means exactly this and only this and that song means exactly that and only that. I could tell you what it means to me. But really, what good is that? I can't persuade anyone to like it because I tell them to. You have to find out for yourself what it means to you. Isn't that what art is all about? It's the same reason you can tell a masterpiece from an advertisement. Both are pictures. It's the same with this album and the rest of the trash that's out there today. Both contain songs. Or at least screaming and maniacal ranting.

What made Document different from all the preceding R.E.M. albums? Well, first of all, you could understand the lyrics. No more trying to decipher Michael Stipe's vocals as he flung his imagery out there in a stream-of-consciousness manner (with, of course, the obvious exception of "It's The End of the World...")

Second, it actually spawned a hit single. Ironically (or maybe not so ironically), "The One I Love" is the song with the simplest message and the lyrics to go along with it. Since it's just a repeated verse, there is no great stretch to find the meaning behind it. I guess that meant it was okay for mass consumption, but I think it also meant that R.E.M. weren't tentative about jumping into the public eye beyond college radio.

Last of all, it's their last album on I.R.S. records before they jumped to the major labels with Green. It may not seem like much of a point in terms of what makes an album good, but if you listen to Document and Green back-to-back you get a definite sense that something has changed, whether it be subject matter, production values, or whatnot.

I may be in the minority in that Green and Document are my favorite R.E.M. albums, but I think the songs, particulary on Document, convey a great blend of affairs both political and of the heart. "Exhuming McCarthy" and "Disturbance at the Heron House" in particular catch you with their music and force you to pay attention to what they are saying. It's unusual to be able to trace a band's progression as artists so clearly as one can with R.E.M. albums. Whereas Green was the diving board that they used to plunge into the mainstream and Out of Time was the vessel that took them there permanently, Document was the ladder taking them up to make their leap.