"There are a few things on this album that could do well on Top Forty radio, but then again 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. I know my mom will buy three or four. I don't see this as the record that's going to blast apart the chart. Although you never know. Weirder things have happened." – guitarist Peter Buck in 1987 when speaking about their new album, Document. 

And both critical and commercial success it did achieve, becoming REM’s first platinum album and containing their first top-10 hit – “The One I Love”. Certainly anyone in college in 1987 and 1988 heard this album, either wafting out of a dorm room or blaring in a campus establishment. Oh, how many times in a drunken state of euphoria I stupid danced to "It's the End of the World as We Know It”.   

Document was recorded in April/May of 1987 at the Sound Emporium in Nashville. It marked the band’s first collaboration with producer Scott Litt, a relationship that would continue over their next 5 albums; the most commercially successful period in the band’s history. It was also their last new-material release for IRS records.

Building on what they’d started with the previous year’s Lifes Rich Pageant, Document was another step in their metamorphosis from cult-band status to mass popularity. “This time around we wanted to make a tougher-edged record," said Buck. "Lifes Rich Pageant was kind of like the Bryan Adams records – I really liked the record, but it was very direct in a lot of ways. This time we wanted to make a loose, weird, semi-live-in-the-studio album. We wanted to have a little tougher stance." Goal achieved.

This was one of the few non-metal/punk albums I was listening to at the time. Tough for me to pick a fav song and depending on my mood it’s either “Strange” (a remake of a post-punk band, Wire, song) , “Lightnin’ Hopkins” (a shout out to the blues legend) or “Oddfellows Local 151”. 

Fire!