Monster

The long promised rock album is this. R.E.M. now wanted songs that they could play live. "It had to sound like four guys playing in a room again" said Peter. Each band member except for Michael had about ten songs each, and Michael wrote the lyrics. Recordings began in Acapulco, Mexico in October of '93, continued in New Orleans, Miami, and finished in July, '94 in LA. That spring, Peter became the father of twin girls. The songs on Monster were about sex and death. During this time, R.E.M. had lost two good friends, River Phoenix (To whom the entire album is dedicated to) and Kurt Cobain (The song 'Let me in' is written to him). Monster is a good name for a rock album. The name also appeared in a few other times. On Can't get there from here, Michael sang, "When the world is a monster...", and the sub-title of the Succombs video is "The myth. The monster. The video." Promoting the album, R.E.M. went on the "?" world-wide tour in '94-'95.