I must apologize and admit that this review is a week late. However, unless and until I get paid for these reviews (and, honestly, I shouldn't be paid), I am not all that sorry. This (last) week's album is New Adventures in Hi-Fi by R.E.M. which sat at #3 on the charts thirty years ago (and one week). This is my second R.E.M. review. In my review of Monster I remembered my summer in Athens, Georgia, which is where R.E.M. got their start.

During my time there me and the other students in the REU program would go to downtown Athens and have a couple drinks and hang out in the evenings. I am not a late-night person, so I would typically excuse myself and walk back to the on-campus dorm before my friends were done hanging out. On more than one occasion they would tell me the next day that I just missed seeing Michael Stipe (the lead singer of R.E.M.) show up to the bar. I never did see him. Oh well.

Despite the accolades for the album, this has never been one of my favorite R.E.M. albums. But don't let me dissuade you from checking it out. Even the worst R.E.M. album is better that most of the stuff I review. Give it a spin!

In the summer of 2001 I spent a couple months participating in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in the Physics Department at the University of Georgia (UGA). UGA is in Athens, Georgia, which is a wonderful little college town about two hours away from Atlanta. There are many things I remember about my time there. Having grown up in the Bay Area and it's notoriously cold summers, that was the first summer I spent in a genuinely hot place. I brought a bike and I spent a fair amount of time exploring the countryside around Athens — and this was before smartphones with GPS! The group of REU students I was in and a few faculty members took a trip to see a Space Shuttle launch, which was amazing.

As part of my preparation for spending a summer in Athens, I made a bunch of MiniDisc recordings (I had a Sharp MD-MS722), including the R.E.M. catalog. R.E.M. were students at UGA and got their start in Athens. I wanted to listen to their music while spending time in Athens.

Included in my MiniDisc library was Monster which shot to #1 in its first week on the charts. Monster doesn't have as many hits as Out of Time or Automatic for the People, really only the first track, What's the Frequency Kenneth got big radio airplay.

This is one of those albums that makes the 30 Years On project fun. Listening to this album brings me back to being in Athens, being in a new place, doing new things. It's a great album and I recommend it.