R.E.M.

The slow, gorgeous agony of Around the Sun is R.E.M.'s most contrary studio triumph: a disc of frankly spiritual and acutely topical protest ballads, draped in futuristic Pet Sounds strum and hum. But Michael Stipe's tears of rage and sighs of survival in "Final Straw" and "Leaving New York" will get under your skin -- like liquid gold -- if you stand still long enough to let them.

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