R.E.M. - New Adventures in Hi-Fi

New Adventures in Hi-Fi is another R.E.M. album that can be a bit polarizing. I generally love it, though I do find it wanders aimlessly at points. The process through which this album was created is absolutely fascinating. While on the Monster tour, R.E.M. started playing songs in concert which were written for this album. Those performances were captured on 8-track recorders and used as the basis for this album. Add to that interesting approach the fact that everybody not named Peter Buck was suffering from major health problems (hernias, adhesions, and aneurisms, oh my) and you've got yourself a crazy way to make an album. Like I said, New Adventures in Hi-Fi does tend to wander a bit in places, but it's mostly a really solid album and one of the more interesting sounding albums the band ever made.