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- #41
If you REALLY liked the album, I guess you'd like the performance - by the book, as it was.
For me it is the least strong piece in a huge and brilliant body of work. The decision to 'rock' it up a bit was a very poor one in my opinion.
The band are / were far, far better at the earlier less obviously commercial stuff (from the earliest stuff, through Fables, and right up to Green). The more radio friendly pop stuff of Out of Time and Automatic was less to my taste, but they were still patently very, very good at it.
Then, with Monster, they decided to try to turn into Muse! Not for me (Clive).
They regained my interest best part of a decade later, with Reveal, which fits the early work much better.
All IMO, obvs.
The period around the time of Monster was in some respect a strange one for music. I feel grunge was directly and indirectly influencing many bands, REM included. It was an okay album but the following one, New Adventures in Hifi was pretty good imho. I lost interest after this.