Up by R.E.M.

Up, R.E.M.'s eleventh studio album, came out on Warner Bros. in October 1998, and it's the sound of a band learning to walk again. Drummer Bill Berry had retired from the group in October 1997, so Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills filled the hole with session players like Joey Waronker and Barrett Martin and a bank of drum machines. For the first time since Lifes Rich Pageant they worked without Scott Litt, bringing in Pat McCarthy, their mixer and engineer on the previous two records, as co-producer.

The result is hushed, fragile and electronic, all keyboards and programmed beats, with Stipe chewing on faith versus technology and trying out a looser, stream-of-consciousness way of writing. Making it nearly broke them up, the band later admitted. It still reached the top 3 in the US and UK, though it sold less than its predecessors. "Daysleeper" topped the US Adult Alternative Songs chart, and it and "At My Most Beautiful" both hit the UK top 10. A 25th anniversary reissue came in 2023.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.