R.E.M. Issuing Remastered 25th Anniversary Edition of ‘Document’
R.E.M. have announced a remastered 25th anniversary edition of their 1987 LP Document, featuring a previously unreleased live recording of a concert during their Work tour on September 14th, 1987 in Utrecht, Holland. The release includes new liner notes and is packaged in a lift-top box that contains four postcards. R.E.M. will also issue a remastered 180-gram vinyl edition of the release.
Document was R.E.M.’s first platinum record, featuring the Top 10 hit “The One I Love” and one of the band’s most enduring songs, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” Reviewing the album , Rolling Stone‘s David Fricke praised the record, calling it their “finest album to date” and writing, “Document is the sound of R.E.M. on the move, the roar of a band that prides itself on the measure of achievement and the element of surprise.”
The band wasn’t sure what to expect when the album came out. “There are a few things on this album that could do well at Top 40 radio,” guitarist Peter Buck told Rolling Stone in 1987. “But then I can’t imagine it happening, knowing us. So I don’t know if I have any commercial expectations for this one at all. I assume it will sell some, somebody’s got to buy it.”
Document was certified platinum, with sales of more than 1 million copies, less than six months later – the first in a string of platinum-selling albums that included the band’s next five releases: Green, Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Last September, R.E.M. announced they were splitting up after three decades.
The remastered 25th anniversary edition of Document is set for a September 25th release. Check out audio of Buck’s introduction to the album below, recorded in 1987 for attendees of the New Music Seminar.