Aided by strings arranged by John Paul Jones and conducted by George Hanson, Automatic for the People features ruminations on mortality, loss, mourning, and nostalgia.

Upon release, the album received widespread acclaim from critics, reached number two on the US Billboard 200, and yielded six singles.

delving deeper than ever; grown sadder and wiser, the Athens subversives reveal a darker vision that shimmers with new, complex beauty.

Lead singer Michael Stipe was not present at these sessions; instead, the band gave him the finished demos at the start of 1992.

[19] Stipe described the music to Rolling Stone early that year as "[v]ery mid-tempo, pretty fucking weird [...] More acoustic, more organ-based, less drums".

[21] The group decided to create finished recordings with co-producer Scott Litt at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York, starting on March 30.

[23] After recording sessions were completed in July, the album was mixed at Bad Animals Studio in Seattle.

's initial desire to make an album of rocking, guitar-dominated songs after Out of Time, music critic David Fricke noted that instead Automatic for the People "seems to move at an even more agonized crawl" than the band's previous release.

"[26] "Sweetness Follows", "Drive", and "Monty Got a Raw Deal" in particular expressed much darker themes than any of the band's previous material and "Try Not to Breathe" is about Stipe's grandmother dying.

[27] The songs "Drive", "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite", "Everybody Hurts", and "Nightswimming" feature string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones.

Fricke stated that "ballads, in fact, define the record", and noted that the album featured only three "rockers": "Ignoreland", "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite", and "Man on the Moon".

Out of Time had an orchestral arrangement—so, when we did Automatic, judging where Michael was going with the words, we wanted to scale it down and make it more intimate.

[34] "The album was going to be called Star at one point, hence the object on the cover that Michael had photographed and really dug," Scott Litt told Mojo.

"[29] The star photograph is placed over an embossed image, which is also included inside the album's booklet distorted on a white background.

[39] Automatic for the People yielded six singles over the course of 1992 and 1993: "Drive", "Man on the Moon", "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite", "Everybody Hurts", "Nightswimming" and "Find the River".

[37] A live, harder, version of "Drive" appears on the Alternative NRG, recorded at Athens' 40 Watt Club on November 19, 1992, during an invitation-only concert supporting Greenpeace Action.

A re-recorded, slower version of "Star Me Kitten", featuring William S. Burroughs, was released on Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by the X-Files in 1996.

biographer David Buckley wrote, "Automatic for the People is regarded by Peter Buck and Mike Mills, and by most critics, as being the finest R.E.M.

"[50] Melody Maker reviewer Allan Jones commented, "It's almost impossible to write about the record without mentioning the recent grim rumours concerning Stipe's health", in reference to the rumors at the time that the singer was dying of AIDS or cancer.

Jones concluded his review by noting, "Amazingly, initial reactions to Automatic for the People in this particular vicinity have been mixed.

[55] Garcia added that the album proves "that a so-called alternative band can keep its edge after conquering the musical mainstream" and that it "manages to dodge predictability without ever sounding aimless or unfocussed.

"[55] Automatic for the People placed third in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop year-end critics' poll.

[56] The Village Voice's Robert Christgau later gave the album a three-star honorable mention rating, indicating "an enjoyable effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well treasure.

Given that lyrically the record dealt with mortality, the passage of time, suicide and family, we felt that a light spot was needed.