Chart Rewind: In 1994, R.E.M. Had a ‘Monster’ Week on the Billboard 200

Ben Wyatt: “Get this — I just asked the DJ what R.E.M. albums he has. He’s got Monster, but not Automatic for the People.”

Leslie Knope: “Wow.”

Ben: “I know. It’s like, ‘What is this, a mid-‘90s party?’ No, it’s an early-‘90s party.”

——————–

In a 2013 episode of NBC’s Parks and Recreation, Leslie and Ben attend an early-1990s fête, the domain of, as Ben correctly notes, R.E.M.’s 1992 LP Automatic for the People.

Had the DJ been more up on the timeline of R.E.M.’s discography — and Billboard chart history — he would have known that Monster made its mark on surveys in 1994-95. The set debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated Oct. 15, 1994, with 344,000 copies sold in the United States, according to Luminate. (No data available on how many sold in Pawnee, Ind.) The frame marks the band’s best since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991, outperforming by 57% the 218,000 that Automatic for the People moved in its first week in October 1992, when it opened at its No. 2 peak.

Monster became R.E.M.’s second of two Billboard 200 No. 1s, after Out of Time also led for two weeks, in May and June 1991.

“It’s obvious that this album was eagerly anticipated by R.E.M.’s fans,” then-Billboard associate director of charts/retail Geoff Mayfield wrote upon Monster’s chart bow. (In that pre-Halloween issue’s Chart Beat column, Fred Bronson titled his recap of the arrival “‘Monster’ Mash.”)

Billboard’s review of Monster in the Oct. 1, 1994, issue praised R.E.M.’s crunchier turn on the set: “After a glorious acoustic phase, band reverts to the power-pop sound it sported in the late ‘80s, now sharpened with an industrial edge. Monster will live up to its name at rock, pop, college and alternative formats, reaffirming the band’s place as one of the most compelling, and uncompromising, in America.”

Monster yielded the two most recent of R.E.M.’s six No. 1s on the Alternative Airplay chart: “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” for two weeks beginning in September 1994 — as it became the first song to debut at the list’s summit — and “Bang and Blame” (three weeks that December). The former also hit No. 10 on Pop Airplay, while three more cuts from the set reached Alternative Airplay, in 1995: “Star 69” (No. 8), “Strange Currencies” (No. 14) and “Crush With Eyeliner” (No. 33).

Warner Records re-signed R.E.M. (which had joined the label for 1988’s Green) to a reported $80 million contract in August 1996. The deal signified just how high the band had risen since releasing its first single, the eventual classic “Radio Free Europe,” on indie Hib-Tone in 1981. (The group signed with I.R.S. in 1982.)

In 1997, drummer Bill Berry left R.E.M., which continued as a trio of lead singer Michael Stipe, bassist Mike Mills and guitarist Peter Buck. The group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 and upped its count to 10 Billboard 200 top 10s through its last LP of all-new music, Collapse Into Now, in 2011. That September, Stipe, Mills and Buck announced their amicable split on R.E.M.’s website.

On June 13, R.E.M. — including Berry — reunited to perform its highest-charting Billboard Hot 100 hit, “Losing My Religion,” which rose to No. 4 in 1991, at the Songwriters Hall of Fame annual celebration in New York, where the band was among 2024’s enshrinees.

“Writing songs and having a catalog of work that we’re all proud of that is out there for the rest of the world for all time is hands-down the most important aspect of what we did,” Stipe told the audience. “Second to that is that we managed to do so all those decades and remain friends. And not just friends, dear friends.” He added, “We are four people that very early on decided that we would own our own masters and we would split our royalties and songwriting credits equally. All for one and one for all.”