10 Best Rock Music Album Closers Of The 1990s
8. Find The River - Automatic For The People (R.E.M.)
Out of Time from 1991 introduced everyone to the fact that R.E.M. had been making '90s-sounding records since before the '90s even began. The band wasted no time in releasing the sequel, as Automatic for the People came out one year later. Thanks to songs like The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite, Man on the Moon, and Everybody Hurts, it was also a smash.
Whilst any number of the mournful, introspective ballads on this album could have closed it, the band made the stellar decision to bring things to a crescendo with Find the River.
The song uses the metaphor of a river travelling to the ocean to describe waiting for life to take you down the right path. It's a beautiful concept, one that is upheld by Michael Stipe's trademark vocal sweetness.
Where this song really comes alive is in its arrangement. The use of a melodica, played by drummer Bill Berry, adds something quaint and pastoral to the song, which was already beautiful to begin with.
Though not a massive, crashing end to the album, R.E.M. expertly lull you in with this song, as if you were floating downstream yourself.