REM - Accelerate

You've been reading SPIN?

Capitalization not needed.

It might not be great, but chances are it's better than Around the Sun. Certainly can't get much worse...

the stuff from the shows in dublin this past summer have been pretty good. the first track, at least, is great. the first single is good musically, but the lyrics are pretty meh.

for reference: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_We6ubpUHZs

Ehh. It's okay to pretty good. What raises it above some of their other recent material, I think, is Mike Mills' vocal harmony parts. That, to me, is what makes it sound a little like mid-career R.E.M. (I guess that would mean the Life's Rich Pageant, Document, Green-ish era).

Yeah, I'd agree with that and add that it's some of Buck's most interesting guitar playing/composition in many, many years. Still, I'm not sure I'd ever pull it off the shelf if I had the option of listening to Document instead.

Is Around The Sun generally considered to be their low point? I like it better than the previous two.

I'm not sure it's even considered an album.

it's quite a shame that all we can really hope to expect is something that is 'not as bad'

Is Around The Sun generally considered to be their low point?

The short answer is yes.

The only time I even remember Around the Sun exists is when someone else brings it up.

Same here. It's the only album of theirs I don't own.

Around the Sun is so inoffensive that I don't even hold it against them.

around the what now?

hey, listening to it on yootoob now. it's thick and angry. i like it.

i love this record, which is something i haven't said about REM in 10+ years. first few listens i was worried it was one-dimensional, but it grows in stature each time through. first song is phenomenal. the rest of it i love without exception, even that corny 'i'm gonna dj' song.

From the title alone, ''I'm Gonna DJ'' sounds like the one awkward clunker that's turned up on every R.E.M. disc since about Out Of Time (even the good discs). Not that everything else on those discs are good, but there seems to always be at least one song that makes me cringe when it starts.

The only person who liked Around The Sun was the writer in Uncut who gave it four stars at the time when Uncut were sponsoring an REM tour.

I love the first two songs on Around the Sun (Leaving NY and Electron Blue), and never really understood the hatred that the album got.

I'm Gonna DJ is deliberately cringeworthy, it's sort of going out of its way to be a big stupid Stooges-type rock song. Not sure they 100% pull it off but it's enjoyable nonetheless.

I enjoyed this on the first listen, the first four tracks and 'Mr Richards' especially. Very Life's Rich Pageant/Document crossed with New Adventures. Fuck-awful Southall-baiting production job on the acoustic tracks mind.

Very Life's Rich Pageant/Document crossed with New Adventures.

^^^^ This is encouraging, but I'm still skeptical. They seem so . . . comfortable, sedate, behind-the-curve, overly-eager now? Not sure which of those applies, if any, but something about them will never be the same for me. And that is a shame.

Yeah it's not as good as any of them but it certainly feels a lot less complacent than the last two.

well, this might be a more interesting listen than i ever envisaged. and well, in fairness, i can't but help at least listen to anything the band puts out

Okay, 'one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made'? The guitars on the disc sound like "you've got R.E.M.'s 1982 EP Chronic Town and the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks spinning in your CD tray at the same time"

O RLY, ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE?

Like I said before, I'm skeptical (tho, with each comment that it's a return to glory, a little more interested, I guess). I want to like the new disc. I guess that counts for something.

I have liked their most recent output, and I hope this one isn't going to be too "rock". For me, "Monster", "Document" and "New Adventures In Hi-Fi" are their three worst albums, and they were also their three most "rock" ones. R.E.M. started out as an excellent jangle pop band, and they are always at their best when they keep to pop rather than rock.

This has really grown on me, its better than any of their post-1990 output save Automatic and New Adventures. There's a slight sag in the middle with Houston and the title track but otherwise it's remarkably consistent.

The guitars on the disc sound like "you've got R.E.M.'s 1982 EP Chronic Town and the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks spinning in your CD tray at the same time"

Not entirely wide-of-the-mark, except maybe Reckoning rather than Chronic Town. Horse To Water is pretty much a louder, more distorted version of Little America. Basically it sounds like their 80s stuff does when the play it live.

but the crucial question - if it were anyone but R.E.M. playing, would you like it as much?

If it were anyone but REM it would sound like the most brazen REM rip-off of all time, so probably not. I mean, pretty much every track is an archetypal REM song of one stripe or another.

For me, "Monster", "Document" and "New Adventures In Hi-Fi" are their three worst albums, and they were also their three most "rock" ones.

I always felt that none of their records rocked harder than Reckoning, and that it was all downhill from there (slowly at first, then quickly). As soon as they lost interest in playing live (once it became a chore, which is what it sounds like it's been from 1989 on), they lost a great deal of what made them distinctive.

I'm gonna have to check this out. Other than half of Up, half of Reveal, and all of Around the Sun, I like most everything they have done.

Prediction: Peter Buck will tell Mojo/Uncut/Q that this is the greatest album they have ever recorded.

Did he say that about Around The Sun? Because in interviews for this one he's all like "I gave up on that record before we even finished it, I knew it was a shit record".

that bodes well for this record!

hahah z.s.

what was that horribly embarrasing, shit opening track on 'out of time'? if the title is anything to go by, we're in for a treat with 'i'm gonna dj'

how does this album sound? because early reports were that the mix and mastering of this were completely awful, though the songs were good.

sounds okay to me. guitars are loud and way up front and the vocals are kinda buried. which is fine with me. their best stuff has stipe deeper in the mix, as far as i'm concerned.

The mixing and mastering is shit, it's a Jacknife Lee production. Actually it's okay on the rock tracks (ie 3/4 of the record) because it just sounds like they've recorded it live off the mixing desk at one of their gigs (New Adventures style) but the acoustic tracks suffer from a lack of dynamics.

No doubt lots of tv adverts saying "it's a return to form". Which was said on tv adverts for the last 2 albums.

Nobody said "Around the Sun" was a return to form. The new one truly is, though.

It's alright. Not nearly as bad as Around The Sun, but still not especially good.

Main problem: the first couple tracks warmed me up for lots of Mike Mills backing vocals (lack of which has been one of their big problems since Monster). But they never really turn up. "Until the Day is Done" is dying for some "Half A World Away"-style yodels.

Also, Stipe still doing that "I-am-singing-in-iambic-pentameter" no melody thing. Boo.

(Also: "Radio Song" is awesome, c'mon. Silly, sure, embarrassing, definitely, but it's fun.)

No doubt lots of tv adverts saying "it's a return to form". Which was said on tv adverts for the last 212 albums.

This AMG blog post gives me hope for the album. The fact that it makes some candid admissions only increases it's credibility:

Such praise dangerously threatens to over-sell Accelerate, however, suggesting that the album has either the unearthly mystique of Murmur or the ragged enthusiasm Reckoning when it has neither. This is a careful, studied album from a band that knew they were on the brink of losing their audience and, worse, their identity. Accelerate finds R.E.M. attempting to reconnect with their music, what made them play rock & roll in the first place, instead of methodically resurrecting a faded myth. They reconnect handsomely, creating an album the can stand next to work from their peers, like Dinosaur Jr’s exceptional comeback Beyond and Sonic Youth’s casually vital Rather Ripped (whose “Incinerate” reverberates in the dissonant open-ended “Accelerate”). As comebacks go, that’s relatively modest, but the very modesty of Accelerate is what makes it such a successful rebirth as R.E.M. no longer denies what they were or what they are and, in doing so, they offer a glimpse of what they could be once again.

This actually makes me sort of interested in the disc (other comments here, and in one place elsewhere, also give me reason to hope; by contrast, a billion web-sites parroting media kit claims that Accelerate is a "return to form" give me little comfort).

Wow, the mastering/mix really is awful. It's distracting from the very beginning to the very end. The drums on "Houston", in particular are cringeworthy.

And "I'm Gonna DJ" doesn't sound out of place here. It sounds like the rest of the album. There are only two volumes: medium and in your face. I'll be the first (and probably last) to draw a Monster comparison here, both because of the return to rawk modus operandi and the prevalence of chords over finger picking on Buck's part. What's sad is that R.E.M. have gotten to the point where sounding like Monster seems like a great improvement.

Except it doesn't sound like Monster, by and large, other than it has noisy guitars. It sounds more like the rock moments on New Adventures (Wake Up Bomb, Departure, So Fast So Numb etc).

Michael Stipe Press Announcement

I like the album fine but no way is it at the same level as Rather Ripped.

<i>i continue to be amazed and kind of impressed at the level of press exposure the band is getting for this record in the states. maybe that's naive of me, but i really felt like ATS was the death blow. there's a pretty high level of coverage/visibility for this record -- they're now apparently going to be on the colbert report on 4/2 -- which was something i honestly did not think was possible as recently as 8 months ago.

the unfortunate flip side is that this whole thing could come to the proverbial grinding halt if/when pitchfork pans the record. should said pan happen, i would be very bummed.</i>

Not sure how a bad pitchfork review changes visibility to a band that promotes its records on the Colbert Report and the Today Show.

^^^

eh, can help prevent a mccartney comeback from turning into a dylan comeback. album's dull but it has moments where they seem to be trying and has some idea of what they're good at and what they'd stopped doing. still far far cry from being 'back' though, and though i first thought 'well, it's a step in the right direction' truth be told i don't think it's as good as up or the best moments of reveal. weirdly to me it's maybe even sadder than the recent records in that with them i at least got a weird sense of 'yeah so we're less relevant AND less successful now but this is what we're interested in doing so deal' (like neil young in the 80s only if EVERY album was landing on water), this sounds like they definitely want to be on the radio again and frankly i can't picture anything on this record being as big a hit even as say 'lotus', nevermind something someone might name if asked to name an r.e.m. hit.

fwiw, "Supernatural Superserious" is already a bigger Modern Rock hit than "Lotus" (or anything since then besides "The Great Beyond") and I've been hearing it a lot lately on my local Active Rock station which usually hardly ever plays REM. still kind of a blip at the moment, but give it a few weeks, could turn out to be an actual hit.

ESPN just used it during an MLB Opening Day montage, so that's gotta mean something re: staying power & such.

or it means "payola."

or it means "thank God they didn't resort to nu-nu-grunge" (in my apt)

fwiw modern rock chart is alot smaller pond in 08 than it was in 98. i could be wrong though. i mean i don't like madonna's odds w/ her album and it's got alot more going in its favor in terms of the marketplace than r.e.m. does. alot of the buzz reminds me of that fucking pearl jame album w/ the avocado wherein they were supposedly 'back' and then well, nope, didn't happen...still, wish them the best etc.

Oh, I know, you're preaching to the choir, rock radio matters a LOT less than it used to, although that Pearl Jam album did do pretty well (sold more than the previous one, bigger single than anything off the previous two). I would say with bands like them and REM, the stakes have lowered to the point that noone would realistically expect them to come roaring out of the gate with a blockbuster now, it's just a matter of whether they're still in the game at all and touring big venues. I suppose given the continued success of, say, Green Day or RHCP, it's not impossible for them to get back to a Monster/Vitalogy-level sales, but it's too much of a long shot to look at a real measuring stick. Platinum w/ big press push is their best case scenario, not multi-platinum w/ enormous hit single.

I get the feeling they're bigger internationally than in the States, now? From New Adventures up until Reveal at least, it always seemed like they sold more in Europe, although I may be totally wrong there.

fwiw: i don't like REM much. i like this album. that says something, but probably nothing of value.

hard to believe that they've put out seven albums since the i.r.s. years. on first listen this one's my favorite since new adventures. my enjoyment of r.e.m. depends mostly on the lyrics, and the first song creeped me out, like michael was singing about my life. i haven't had that immediate a reaction to hearing a new r.e.m. song since "leave"

OK. Heard the album today and it's more similar to "Murmur" than "New Adventures In Hi-Fi". Which means it gets thumbs up from me after all.

Wait, really? This new disc is closer in sound to Murmur? If that's true, I've got to get it asap tomorrow. But the songs I've heard from it sound -- to me, at least -- much more like Document-era R.E.M.

I would say they are more melodic than the "Document" stuff. Unless you mean "The One I Love".

Oh good grief Daniel just listen to the bludy record rather than relying on Geir for nuggets of descriptive information.

Fair enough. That's good advices.

(by Matt)

doesn't sound like murmur, daniel--not much jingle-jangle and kudzu mystery. more like monster, but better songs

yeah murmur's a poor comparison. the closest i could compare would be maybe lifes rich paegaent. more sounding like some platonic brand ideal of r.e.m. than any actual era (the same way 'all that you can't blah blah blah' didn't sound like joshua tree or achtung baby or war or whatever but was still recognizably u2 capitulating to some idea of 'u2'). 'living well's the best revenge' is the only one that felt really really r.e.m. in a good way, at least enough to overcome the production. not a fan of the production. what i would like, and what seems feasible (in a way that 'a return to murmur' or 'a return to automatic' aren't) is if they'd aim for 'a return to green', i think that's within their reach (cherry pick reveal and accelerate and combine might be close already).

this record reminds me of Green more than any other

it's okay. Green was my first "disappointment" REM album

bon jovial or not, "until the day is done" is a pretty solid song and wouldn't sound out of place on any album from fables - out of time

green had too much stuff i immediately loved (and still do generally) to be disappointed by though boy did it provoke some indie snark on the school bus. what gets me is listening to the new one i could picture them equaling/capturing another 'pop song 89' and if they're real lucky another 'get up' but i don't see signs of them gathering the grace to pull off another 'you are the everything' or the goofiness to do another 'stand' even (and i like basically all of these green songs though the only one i'm likely to want to hear again is 'get up'). and maybe losing that grace and goofiness is more a result of getting older than losing inspiration but r.e.m.'s most dangerous propensity was toward being boring and a future filled with rote competency and maybe flashes of the old sound sorta don't leave me hopeful they're gonna be able to avoid that trap.

Let's say it sounds like a combination of the sound of the mid to late 80s and the melodicness of "Automatic For The People" then.

I finally heard this last night, I like it well enough so far. I'd certainly rather hear 2008 R.E.M. doing 1995 R.E.M.'s take on 1983 R.E.M. than whatever the fuck they were doing on the last two albums. (I actually do like the atmosphere of Up)

Alex in Montreal, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 04:53 (1 week ago) Link

wtf?

I see nothing wrong about those previous two albums either. But the songs still hold up, and that is more important than anything else.

I really enjoyed the Colbert interview/performance, particularly Stipe's "Um, I don't to well writing songs about girls."

listened once through to the CD release: "Houston" is the standout.

otherwise... some good songs, some bad ones too.

wondering if anyone's still listening to this. thought i would be. i'm not. i am listening to up, reveal, and around the sun for the first time though. my beef when each of those three came out was no convincing uptempo byrdsy stuff. now i find myself in the unforeseen position of wanting a more nuanced song or two, a dirge maybe, a la "falls to climb"

Is this another (not really) 'return to form from the mighty REM'?

haven't listened to it a ton yet (just got it last week), but it sounds good. not great but good. think the only song i disliked was "houston."

i played it a few times last week s'ok, very "classic rock" rem-style which is cool tho not something I'm going to play that often. more peter buck than michael stipe? I agree w/kamerad, it needs more resonant dirge or reflective ballad to counter all the rockers. when the lyrics register they sound dumb but how many albums can you say THAT about? is "mr richards" about that seinfeld guy? what a dopey thing to write song about.

in related news I played Monster a few weeks back for the first time since the 90s and thought it was unlistenable. overall I'd say Accelerate is a return to form but what that signifies in 2008 is hard to say.

It's probably one of the worst album covers of all time.

There's quite a lot of bitching about Jacknife Lee / the mastering on remring.com about this. Can't say I've noticed the cover; why's it so bad?

I still play this pretty regularly, but I'm a huge fan who's been waiting for a record like this from them for about 10 years now. Now that the Go-Betweens are (sadly) gone, they're the only band from my teenage years I still give a shit about. Also, the bitching about the sound issues have become aggravating.

Also, I should learn how to conjugate have.

It looks like a cheapo REM tribute album such as might be found in the £1 MVE bin (FEAT. Real People! Northern Uproar! Malky Matlock! Others!)

There's quite a lot of bitching about Jacknife Lee / the mastering on remring.com about this

It's kinda brittle in places & the drums sound a bit 'modern' at times. Guitars sound pretty great to me!

I've not heard it - I'm not keen on Jacknife or REM particularly so it holds little interest for me anyway.

huh I listened to it on rhapsody and didn't notice the album cover, how MODERN of me. but my kid was watching videos the other morning on MTV or some knockoff and called me over when REM came up in between all the blingy r&b/moony emo vids and it was weird. footage of 3 greying middle-agers --guys my age actually -- walking around w/guitars. it wasn't even arty, just pointless and boring, like kids are going to see this and care? it felt intensely clueless, and sad. then he switched channels before it ended and I left.

I really like the cover -- looks like something painstakingly drawn in ballpoint pen during a long series of dull high-school classes.

Alex in Montreal, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 04:53 (1 week ago) Link

wtf?

-- alex in montreal, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 13:28 (3 weeks ago) Link

Sorry. When I signed up, I hadn't seen any of your posts, typed in that username, and I guess it distinguished it as different because of capitals. My apologies. This is now slightly awkward.

"Mr. Richards," it should be said, is not about the Seinfeld guy.

Just go by initials. AM. It's the way to go.

the mastering and mix is not good, the whole thing is cluttered and, not exactly brickwalled, but still overly loud. compare it to monster (which I think is a worse album actually)...they handled the 'this is a loud album' much better there.

I finally heard this last night, I like it well enough so far. I'd certainly rather hear 2008 R.E.M. doing 1995 R.E.M.'s take on 1983 R.E.M. than whatever the fuck they were doing on the last two albums.

I'll agree with this (although I actually do like a good-sized handful of Reveal cuts). Accelerate is a professional-sounding, self-aware record, and so it's hard for it to really feel like a magical moment of re-invigoration - but it's a good, solid entry in their catalog. If it had come out in 1998 as an EP of being leftover material from New Adventures it might make a little more sense but it's good stuff.

The problem is that the next one has to be really really good or they need to break up now on a slightly high note. (To have broken up after Around The Sun would have reduced their reputation permanently...)

But yeah, I dunno - "Mister Richards" is really really headsticky, and "Supernatural Superserious" actually gives me a catch in my throat. The empathy at the heart of all of Stipe's lyricism is there in top form.

"Horse To Water" is probably the most convincing thing on there, also "I'm Gonna DJ." "Houston" suffers from sounding like it's trying to sound edgy and weird - "Horse To Water" actually really does sound like these guys are actually playing rock and roll (and having a lot of fun, I should add).

anyone see this tour yet? going to see them tomorrow. the following night's wales show's been downgraded to a venue *less than a fifth* of the size origianlly booked.