REM decided to do a record without a drummer, unfortunately the outcome was clearly not at their usual level. Also, composing an album with the three members in different places resulted in a lack of quality. The only song that is at the same level of some of their previous albums is "Lotus", the rest is just a way of filling some disc space, without any real inspiration. They made the same mistake with "Automatic for the people", but the songwriting there was a little better, here it is really terrible, and the musical arrangements are clearly awful