Superserious

One of the best, most unexpected gifts this year has been the podcast R U Talkin' R.E.M. RE: Me?, a sort of sequel to the hilarious U Talkin' U2 To Me? Scott and Scott had briefly floated the idea of an R.E.M. 'cast in a late episode of the earlier U2 series, and I had quickly seized on it as a fantastic idea, but as the years passed I assumed that it would never come to fruition. But lo and behold, they did it, dropping a fantastic series of eps in their comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium of all things R.E.M.

The new 'cast has the same general format at the old one: most episodes include a full walkthrough of a single album, with the two hosts discussing their opinions of and thoughts about each song, but mostly talking about inane and hilarious unrelated topics. The overall feel of the two series ended up being quite different, though. The U2 cast was bonkers, the hosts frequently got really punchy, and it usually devolved into a delightfully silly mess. The R.E.M. cast felt more like a hang-out show: there was more nostalgia, insights into the hosts' lives and dreams, and a strong sense of warmth and rapport. Both shows are great, but I think the R.E.M. tone is what I needed more now in 2018.

The background for the shows are also rather different. Scott and Scott were united in their love of U2, and while they definitely diverged on details, they shared the same context for almost everything: the historical tours, the media events, the reaction to each new record. The R.E.M. cast was a bit closer to the original Analyze Phish, with Scott often in the role of resident skeptic while Scott tries to express his love for the material. Unlike with Phish, Scott actually had a strong connection to early R.E.M., which I think makes Scott's job both easier and harder than Harris's. There's a bit of an "in" since there's already affection there, but Scott has also gone through that "I knew them BEFORE they were cool" phase that leads him to feel like he's already considered their later work and written it off. That said, he gamely devotes himself to the project, often listening to albums for the first time, and finds gems along the way. At the start of this cast, I never would have predicted that Scott would enjoy Reveal but not Document. That still blows my mind. Even when he dislikes things, Scott puts in the work, analyzing what isn't working for him and whether it could be fixed. You hear a lot about sequencing, track selection, production, mixing, and other elements that go into albums but are rarely discussed.

Of course, I'm much more in alignment with Scott, as we both have a fierce, protective love of this band and its music. Neither of us were early adopters: Scott started listening around the time of Eponymous, while I started around New Adventures. We both stuck with the band into their final years and found a lot to love in their later records. This podcast was delayed for so long in large part because Scott was afraid that Scott would make fun of R.E.M. and hurt his feelings. And... well, that happens, especially near the end. The last couple of episodes were actively painful for me, as Scott picks up an incredibly annoying habit of mock-singing along to tracks that he dislikes. It drives me nuts when people do that in real life, and was one of the least pleasant things I've listened to on a podcast. Er, I mean to say, it's EFFING RUDE! I started to wonder if Scott had deliberately been on good behavior for most of the show to keep Scott from bailing, and finally felt free to loosen up and let his disdain flow once it was all in the can. But, I think the overall dynamic still helps the show, as I can cheer on Scott's defense of these songs even as I sympathetically cringe at the hurt in his voice.

As with the previous cast, they occasionally devote an episode to a non-album topic, and also often invite on guest stars to share their own love of and journey with R.E.M.. There are some real gems here. David Wain in particular stands out: he played in an R.E.M. cover band as a young'un, and it's thrilling to hear those ancient recordings. I was a bit surprised to find that the guest I most identified with was Haley Joel Osment. He and I actually started listening to the band at almost exactly the same time, although I was (er, am) nearly a decade older. For both of us, going back to the IRS records was like archaeology. It's honestly fascinating to see someone who has favorite tracks from Monster, but of course, that makes perfect sense. One idea the show returns to over and over again is how music is intensely personal and fundamentally biographical. Everyone's favorite songs will be the ones they heard at formative times in their lives, and you can't (and shouldn't!) argue with their love.

Oh, and the Todd Glass episode is every bit as amazing as you would hope. If you only listen to one ep, listen to that one.

The show wrapped this week, at least for the time being. As with the U2 cast, they may reunite for one-off episodes in the future if anything new happens. Given that R.E.M. broke up seven years ago, it's less likely there will be news there... but I noticed that just this week an enormous never-before-released selection of their performances will come out from the BBC, so who knows? We should also be getting at least one episode with their Christmas songs. For now, though, Scott and Scott closed with lists of their favorite R.E.M. entries. There are few things I enjoy more than ranking R.E.M., so I'll gladly take this excuse to play along.

Albums

1. Green
2. Automatic for the People
3. Murmur
4. Up
5. Lifes Rich Pageant
6. Accelerate
7. Document 
8. New Adventures in Hi-Fi
9. Collapse Into Now
10. Reveal
11. Fables of the Reconstruction
12. Out of Time
13. Monster
14. Reckoning
15. Around the Sun

I know, I know, it's heresy to have Reckoning so low. In the past I've placed it above Monster. For me, personally, the songs on Reckoning are so forgettable: there isn't anything I especially dislike about the album, but nothing on it (except for Harborcoat, I suppose) motivates me to listen to it. By contrast, Monster has a bunch of songs I actively dislike, but also several that I actively enjoy listening to. Overall, I think this time my ranking was more influenced by how many great songs I can identify on each album as opposed to the average quality of songs. That especially helped Up, LRP, and NAiHF, and hurt Fables and Reckoning.

I didn't include Chronic Town (it's an EP) or Dead Letter Office (it's a B-side collection).

Next up, favorite tracks. I really like the idea Scott and Scott had to make separate Top Ten lists for each of three major eras of music from the band, partly because that's an interesting way to think of it, but mostly because that lets me choose 30 tracks instead of just 10.

I.R.S. Era

1. Perfect Circle
2. Swan Swan H
3. It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
4. Flowers of Guatemala
5. Feeling Gravity's Pull 
6. Oddfellows Local 151
7. I Believe
8. Old Man Kensey
9. King of Birds
10. Shaking Through

Fame

1. World Leader Pretend
2. I Remember California
3. Find The River
4. Sweetness Follows 
5. Leave
6. Revolution
7. Orange Crush
8. Low Desert
9. You Are The Everything
10. First We Take Manhattan

Dusk

1. Sing for the Submarine
2. Hope
3. Accelerate
4. Houston
5. Discoverer
6. Saturn Return 
7. Walk Unafraid
8. Blue
9. Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
10. Chorus and the Ring

Their division makes the most sense: it's mathematically clean, with 5 albums for each era, and built around major milestones, of record labels and band members. But, personally, I'd be tempted to move Document into the middle portion and New Adventures to the final, as I think that's more sonically cohesive: Document has the big and well-produced anthemic sound that defines their early Warner records, while New Adventures kicks off their period of artsy experimentation and electronic instrumentation that dominates their later years.

Total Career

1. World Leader Pretend
2. I Remember California
3. Perfect Circle
4. Swan Swan H
5. Sing for the Submarine
6. Find the River
7. Hope
8. It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
9. Accelerate
10. Houston

While the middle era contains my overall-favorite songs, I had the hardest time whittling the final era down to 10. There are a lot more songs on Up that barely missed making the list, and could easily be defended for top 10 overall.

Finally, a couple of lists of my own:

Least Favorite / Most Overrated (controversial!!)

1. Country Feedback
2. Wendell Gee
3. Mr. Richards
4. Shiny Happy People
5. Binky the Doormat (great title, though!)
6. Star Me Kitten
7. Tongue
8. Hairshirt
9. The Worst Joke Ever
10. [Insert your favorite song here]

I'm not including instrumentals, B-Sides, novelties or covers in the above list.

Favorite Music Videos

1. Imitation of Life
   
2. Talk About The Passion
   
3. Turn You Inside-Out
   
4. Losing My Religion
   
5. Bad Day
   
6. Lotus
   
7. E-Bow the Letter
   
8. Blue
   
9. Finest Worksong
   
10. Drive (starring Adam Scott!)
    

For funsies, I took a shot at sequencing (!) my top 30 tracks into a Spotify playlist, clocking in at a grand total of 2 hours 5 minutes. Here it is! (Note: Spotify doesn't have First We Take Manhattan, so I substituted my #11, Monty Got A Raw Deal. Seems apt. Also, I'd trim the outro to Shaking Through if I could, but it sounds fine as-is IMO.)



And here's the same (almost) playlist on YouTube:

I don't  have as much experience with resequencing as Scott or Scott, so this was a fun challenge. I front-loaded the higher-energy and more upbeat songs at the start, which isn't all that representative of this playlist but feels like a good way to begin (in the begin). It quiets down before gradually segueing into the dark, weird, ominous songs that I most love. There are a lot of those, so I broke them up into a couple of sections, interrupted by some more optimistic tracks. "Hope" starts the transition into the end, leading into a series of especially pretty and reflective songs that close out the playlist.

I'm sad to see this podcast come to an end. Not as sad as I was to see R.E.M. break up, but still. I'm glad that there will still be a few episodes to look forward to, and even more glad that I can pull out these albums and listen to them whenever I want. They are still growing on me after more than twenty years, and going on this journey with Scott and Scott helped me find even more new ways to love them.

Edit: For no particular reason other than me having some free time on my hands, here's how my favorite 30 songs are distributed across their 15 albums.
Murmur: 2
Reckoning: 0
Fables of the Reconstruction: 2
Lifes Rich Pageant: 3
Document: 3
Green: 4
Out of Time: 0
Automatic for the People: 2
Monster: 0
New Adventures in Hi-Fi: 2
Up: 2
Reveal: 2
Around the Sun: 0
Accelerate: 3
Collapse Into Now: 3
Non-album tracks: 2

All that REMains

I don't think I've written about this before, but "U Talkin' U2 To Me?" is the funniest podcast I've ever listened to. I'm not a huge connoisseur of the form, but I regularly listen to a handful like Comedy Bang Bang, The Thrilling Adventure Hour and The Bugle, and UTU22M feels like the ultimate fulfillment of the potential of the medium.

Billing itself as an "encyclopedic and comprehensive discussion of all things U2", this podcast is almost entirely devoted to Scott Auckerman and Adam Scott being completely ridiculous. They joke around, tell anecdotes about their Hollywood lifestyle, indulge in running gags, do terrible impressions, and crack me up constantly. Every once in a while they get around to discussing U2, revealing such vital information as the number of people in the band (four!) and their names (Bono, Thedge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullins Sr.'s son). However, they've also been able to accidentally release an entire two-hour-long episode without talking about the band, so that isn't exactly a necessary component of the podcast.

Anyways, like many people I've been sad this summer since they took an extended hiatus after they finished reviewing all existing U2 albums, and was worried they wouldn't be back. I was wrong! Coming hot on the heels of U2's surprise announcement that they would be releasing their new album now and for free, Scott and Scott scrambled back into the studio to record a new ep.

I haven't been able to listen to the whole thing yet, but so far it's been filled with Great Bits. One part early on caught my interest, though. A fan wrote in and asked Scott and Scott for (of course) their ten favorite R.E.M. songs. I'm a devoted R.E.M. fan and a compulsive list-maker, so I immediately began thinking of my own.

It's a bit funny, but I realized that, even though I annually re-sort my list of favorite R.E.M. albums, I don't think I've ever done that exercise at the track level. It's very difficult! Their catalog is so vast and so strong, and it's very easy to get locked into the mindset of, "Oh, but I can't leave this song out!" Even the weakest albums have strong tracks, and one of the things I appreciate most about the band is how solid their output is; of their fifteen albums, I only skip any tracks on three of them. (If you're curious: Out of Time, Monster, and Around the Sun.)

Ultimately, I decided to assemble the list by focusing on the songs that I find myself most likely to seek out and play on their own, independent of going through a whole album. I'd have a hard time defending these songs as objectively the "best" in their repertoire; many of them resonate with me based on sentimental associations or because of my own peculiar musical tastes.

Without further ado, here we go!

1. World Leader Pretend (Green)
2. Perfect Circle (Murmur)
3. I Remember California (Green)
4. Swan Swan H (Lifes Rich Pageant)
5. Sweetness Follows (Automatic for the People)
6. Sing for the Submarine (Accelerate)
7. Leave (New Adventures in Hi-Fi) *
8. Hope (Up)
9. The Flowers of Guatemala (Lifes Rich Pageant)
10. Houston (Accelerate)

Some explanations/excuses:

I feel like "Leave" needs about a dozen asterisks. It's such a weird song, standing out on what's already their strangest album. I've gone through multiple phases of loving and hating it. But, it somehow gets stuck in my head, very powerfully, and I feel like it kind of anticipated my musical tastes a good decade or two in advance.

I'm pretty surprised that "Hope" made it on the list; it wasn't one of my favorite tracks from "Up" when it was first released, but for some reason it's really stuck with me. It may be worth mentioning that Hope is one of the only REM songs that I can (and do) sing.

This list is definitely slanted towards quieter, more reflective songs and weird, dark, ominous (but slow) songs. That's mostly because of where my muse lives these days. A few more rock-y songs I love include Revolution, Accelerate, Discoverer, Begin the Begin, and It's The End Of The World As We Know It.

For reference, here's Adam Scott's list, in no particular order.

1. Life and How to Live It
2. Half a World Away
3. I Believe
4. Try Not to Breathe
5. Ages of You
6. Find the River
7. (Untitled)
8. Exhuming McCarthy
9. Hollow Man
10. Diminished

He only had five minutes to put this together, and it's a great list, which me even more hungry for a follow-up R.E.M. podcast with the Scotts. There's some really intriguing stuff on here; I'm particularly happy to see Hollow Man and Diminished, since most people automatically discard everything that the band did after Automatic for the People. Adam's list is definitely more upbeat than mine, but hey, that's what's great about a band as solid and prolific as R.E.M.: they can cover a wide range of moods and styles, showing their excellence for a variety of occasions.

EDIT:

Okay, I couldn't help myself: here's my latest crack at sorting my favorite albums!

1. Green
2. Automatic for the People
3. Murmur
4. Document
5. Life's Rich Pageant
6. Accelerate
7. Collapse into Now
8. Fables of the Reconstruction
9. Reveal
10. Up
11. New Adventures in Hi-Fi
12. Out of Time
13. Reckoning
14. Monster
15. Around the Sun

It's interesting to compare this list with the sources of my Top 10 Songs list... Document is the highest with no representation at #4, supported by an extremely deep bench. It's possible that LRP is so high because I recently selected two songs from it; the album as a whole doesn't feel as coherent to me as most of their others, but dang if it doesn't have fantastic songs. Curiously, it looks like Around the Sun was two whole spots higher in my last ranking; honestly, I think I've hardly listened to it at all in the last few years, so I may be internalizing some of the widespread criticism it receives.

My confessions: I don't think Reckoning is that great. I think Country Feedback is overrated. Reveal is very enjoyable to listen to. I wish R.E.M. hadn't broken up.

15 Reasons Why I'm Glad R.E.M. Stuck Around

In the wake of the (to me) shocking news that R.E.M. has decided to break up, it's been interesting to see the range of reactions. I and a few close friends (with impeccable musical taste) were caught somewhere between disappointment and denial. Their last two albums in particular have been so good, and the band has sounded so engaged, that it seems kind of weird that they would pick this point to call it quits. Most of the critics that I've read have lauded the band for their longevity, their influence on the "alternative" music scene, and their string of solid albums from 1980 through the mid-90's, and have somewhat gently said words to the effect that R.E.M. made a good choice in deciding to exit while they're still on top of the game, instead of facing a slide into irrelevance. Many individual commentators, either on twitter, Internet message boards, or the blogosphere, have been quite a bit harsher, either expressing surprise that the band is still around, or stating that they haven't done anything good for the past decade or two.
I find it a bit interesting that there's so much disagreement over when the "right" time for the band to break up would have been. Automatic for the People came out in 1992, almost twenty years ago, and marked a sort of high-water mark in the band's popularity and critical acclaim. Quitting then would have meant that they went out "on top" by having a trajectory that only went upward along all axes (fame, fortune, and respect).  Monster, from 1994, was the last huge commercial success that they had; it went quadruple-platinum, and every record since then has seen declining sales.  Quitting then would have cemented their commercial legacy. Many people think that the logical time for R.E.M. to break up would have been after New Adventures in Hi-Fi in 1996, when Bill Berry left the band. (Famously, he told the other three that he wanted to leave, but would stay if that's what it took to keep the band together.) For anyone who thinks that R.E.M. did the right thing in continuing to make music after 1996, most people seem to be happy that they went all the way until now.

In retrospect, 1997 was probably the most important year in the band's history. The obvious reason was Bill Berry's departure. However, this was also the year that Radiohead released OK Computer, which shook up the rock world that R.E.M. helped create. R.E.M. generally and Michael Stipe in particular had acted as mentors to Radiohead since they first arrived in the early 90's, bringing them along on their tours and acting like elder brothers as they navigated the business of music. Thom Yorke, who had worried early on that his band was sounding too much like R.E.M., later on embraced their similar styles, only to keep on pushing and eventually eclipse them with his radical innovation. OK Computer (and later Kid A) opened up huge new territories for rock bands to explore, and I think that everything R.E.M. has done since then has been driven by their excitement and curiosity at moving into that space.

There's an old and trite choice between being a big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in a big pond. I feel like pre-1997, R.E.M. was one of the biggest fishes in the pond of alternative rock. After 1997, they moved into a different pond that was much bigger, with a much wider array of potential to explore. They never dominated this new pond like they did the old, but they became an even better fish.

Obviously, I'm glad that we got to hold on to R.E.M. for as long as we did. Here are fifteen reasons why I'm happy that they didn't call it quits after 1996, and blessed us with five more albums over fifteen years.

1. Lotus
2. Hope
3. Walk Unafraid
4. Saturn Return
5. Imitation of Life
6. Chorus and the Ring
7. Leaving New York
8. Living Well is the Best Revenge
9. Houston
10. Accelerate
11. Sing for the Submarine
12. Discoverer
13. It Happened Today
14. Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
15. Blue

I think that whenever a person or group makes something that's good, the world gets a tinier bit better as a result. R.E.M. hasn't been making as big a splash over the past decade, but they've been more quietly making a bunch of really, really good music. Listening to it has made my life more pleasurable, and I know that these songs and more will continue to make me happier throughout the rest of my days. I'm grateful to them for giving me those gifts, and wish them all the best in whatever comes next.

Muse, ack!

Yay good music!

I picked up R.E.M.'s "Collapse Into Now" and have enjoyed my first few listens through it. I'm always hesitant to weigh in too strongly on an REM album. Almost without exception, they grow on me, and I hate being on record as having an opinion when I'm fairly sure that opinion will shift over time. Heck, I hated Around the Sun when it came out, and now I enjoy it... definitely towards the bottom of their discography, but even bad REM is better than most other music.

So: my two favorite bands are PROBABLY REM and Radiohead. (At any given time I'll probably be listening more to some electronic artist instead, but year after year those are the bands I keep returning to.) I've noticed that the press has a ritual any time either band releases a new album: before it arrives, they'll speculate about whether it's a "real rock album" or not, and will quote statements from the band indicating that it is. Then, once it drops, the critics will determine whether it qualifies as a "real" rock album. Their review will almost inevitably address this question, which is pretty funny, because the question of whether an album is "rock" or not will have only a tenuous connection to the critic's eventual like or dislike of the album. (As best as I can tell, something counts as a "real rock album" if it prominently features undigitized electric guitar, played quickly on more than half of the tracks.)

The cycle continues for CIN (as it apparently is for King of Limbs, though I'm trying to avoid those reviews until I can give the album its due on my own). Well, backing up a bit, Accelerate scored incredibly high on the "real rock" scale. Most of the reviews for CIN seem to think that the album "rocks" about the same quantity as Accelerate, but is overall of lower quality. When making comparisons (because everyone, including me, LOVES comparing REM albums), the albums that keep on coming up are Accelerate and Monster.

I just don't get it. Yeah, "Discoverer", the opening track, is an exciting, fist-pumping anthemic rocker of a piece. That's not really unusual, though... I don't think you can find any REM album that doesn't have at least one enthusiastic track on it. As I listened to the album, the album I found myself thinking of most often was "Out of Time," REM's gorgeously flawed bridge between the masterpieces Green and Automatic.

Like OOT, CIN is... well, maybe not always happy, but decidedly upbeat. It experiments with different moods and arrangements, not always maintaining a lot of continuity between tracks, but making a fairly coherent over-arching statement. It also expands the fold; remember how OOT had the B-52's? Well, CIN has Patti Smith (as gorgeously strong here as she was on New Adventures in Hi-Fi), Eddie Vedder (hands-down his gentlest delivery ever), and Peaches. Again, it feels a little bit messy - these voices don't always seem to fit with REM - but it's messy in an expansive, interesting way.

A couple of the songs seemed to pretty consciously evoke OOT, as well. In particular, I think "It Happened Today" has to be REM's most unabashedly joyous song since... well, since Shining Happy People. And "Blue" seems to be continuing the conversation that started twenty years ago(!!!) in "Country Feedback."

This album seemed determine to make me like it. On a few occasions I thought, "Eh, this song isn't doing it for me," only to have it surprise me. "Oh My Heart" starts a little monotonously, but then Michael gets to the second verse: "The storm didn't kill me; the government changed." BAM! Just like that, I realized that this song was a sequel to "Houston," one of my favorite songs off of Accelerate. And that made me think of the tectonic changes we've experienced in the three years since that previous album dropped. I imagined our nation cautiously crawling out from the rubble, blinking our eyes, unsteadily trying to regain our feet. It's a place of pain, but also a place of hope, where we can see a way forward. "Oh My Heart," indeed!

"It Happened Today" seemed a little too light and fluffy at first. Then they just say, "screw it," and spend most of the song clapping their hands and singing "Oh, oh, oh, whoa, whoa, oh!" I mean, c'mon! That takes guts, and I love them for it.

I think my favorite tracks come at the end, though. "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" is the one song that does sound like it could have come from Monster; like that album, it's a winking parody of larger-than-life sound. It has fun, though, especially that ludicrous guitar lick during the bridge. Every time I listen to that track I hear something else over-the-top going on. "That Someone Is You" is a brief, exultant ode; it has an oddly punk-music structure to the song, but full-on REM execution. "Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I" carries hints of the Southern Gothic thing that REM used to do back in the late 80's. I think my favorite track on the album may be "Blue," with its discordancy, spoken-word ramblings, noisemaking... all in the service of an elegiac, mournful, quiveringly beautiful song.

I can't rate Collapse Into Now yet, but just so y'all know where I'm coming from, I figured I'd go ahead and rank all the OTHER REM albums. I should mention that this list regularly shifts depending on my mood and what I've been listening to lately.

1.  Green
2. Automatic for the People
3. Murmur 
4. Document
5. Accelerate 
6. Life's Rich Pageant
7. Reveal 
8. Fables of the Reconstruction
9. Up
10. New Adventures in Hi-Fi. (This album makes Out of Time look like a fully coherent and thoroughly thought-out work.)
11. Out of Time
12. Around the Sun
13. Reckoning
14. Monster

And, that's that! Man... do you realize how lucky we are to have this band? They've been releasing records for almost as long as I've been alive. How many bands out there are still releasing original material after thirty years? How many bands are making GOOD MUSIC after that long? The muse hasn't left them yet, and it's fascinating to see what a rock band with a lifetime of experience behind them is capable of producing.

I Saw The Future Turned Upside-Down, And Hesitated

Wow... I think it has now been a solid decade since I decided that R.E.M. was my favorite band. If asked today to name my favorite band, I will hem and haw, then spit out a half-dozen names, with R.E.M. at the head of the list. I don't know whether that is indicative of loyalty or laziness. Regardless, while my tastes have expanded over the years (most notably getting on a huge electronic music kick that I'm still following through on), the formative influence that this Southern band held on me sets a high barrier for any other band to overcome.

They recently released Accelerate, which is their (consulting Wikipedia...) fourteenth album. That's a pretty amazing run, don't you think? They've been making music together for over twenty-five years now, still playing to sold-out stadiums and releasing challenging new music.

Before I get in trouble, I should be clear: The Beatles are a better band than R.E.M. That said, even The Beatles only lasted for a decade, and I think it's a huge testimony to R.E.M.'s tenacity and work ethic that they have hung together and kept evolving their music.

The purpose of this post is to share my thoughts on Accelerate. I have to admit that, unlike Reveal and Around the Sun, I did not buy this one as soon as it became available. Now that I have it, though, I've been hitting it pretty hard. It will take a while for me to come to final decisions, but after several listens I'm prepared to call it "a very good album", and would probably place it in the top half of their canon. Among the post-Berry albums, I'd put it in the middle: Above ATS but below Reveal.

It seems like for every album since New Adventures in Hi-Fi the pre-release buzz has been, "Oh, this is the album where they go back to using a lot of guitars!" With this album it's actually true. It kicks off with a bang, and they follow the driving force of Buck's guitars on the bulk of the songs here. I think that the track "Accelerate" in particular is some of Buck's finest guitar work ever.

That said, this album is definitely an evolution of their sound, not a reversion to their earlier, Document-era work. The electronic experimentation of recent albums is not as evident here, but they have earned the right to use these techniques, which are woven into the soundscape. I got a particular kick out of listening to "Sing For The Submarine" and thinking, "Oh, this sounds a little like Radiohead!" Which is brilliant, since Radiohead was probably more influenced by R.E.M. than any other band. Both bands are mature and incredibly talented, so it feels like an homage or a friendly nod. And after they channel Thom Yorke through the middle part of the song, they break back into a classic Peter Buck riff, and wind up with the same noisy denouement that they have been doing since Murmur.

Aw, heck... I want to talk a little about each track, so let's do that now.

1. Living Well Is The Best Defense. One of my favorite tracks on the album, and it would make a great single. The energy is great, and the lyrics are surprisingly accessible.
2. Man-Sized Wreath. A fine, Document-esque shout at the world. R.E.M. has always been political, but the degree expressed in their music waxes and wanes over the years. This song has them rolling their sleeves up once again to take on Bush, war, the media, and... well, the same things they were complaining about in Document, really.
3. Supernatural Superserious. Their first single... and, given the reception of their recent albums, probably the only single this album will get. Which is a shame: the song is good, but far from the best on offer. The lyrics kind of annoy me, but the music is excellent, a perfect combination of the old and the new: Buck shimmies on the guitar and Mills backs vocals, while the optimism and fuzz are very much part of the 21st century R.E.M.
4. Hollow Man. An interesting little segue of a song, starting calm but building up into a pleasant little rocker.
5. Houston. I really like this one. The paranoid lyrics grab your attention from the very start, and the tune is simultaneously catchy and strange. It carries some of the Southern mysticism that you can detect in Life's Rich Pageant. I really wanted this to be longer.
6. Accelerate. Another of my favorite songs on the album. The energy in this track is unbelievable, the guitarwork inventive, the singing insistent and delightfully vague.
7. Until The Day Is Done. Probably the prettiest singing on the album. This captures the small-chamber aspect that R.E.M. occasionally puts on display, and does it really well... it's quiet and accomplished, finely crafted music.
8. Mr. Richards. My least favorite song in Accelerate. Amusingly, this means I've listened to this one more than any other, as I try to understand why I dislike it so much. I think the song should either be about 25% faster, or else they should have ditched the guitar altogether... either done it acoustic, or done something with the horns they drop in at the end. The tone is making promises that the song doesn't deliver on, making listening a frustrating experience... it's constantly on the verge of being a fun song but never makes it.
9. Sing For The Submarine. I want everyone who complained about New Adventures in Hi-Fi to listen to this: it is an amazing, atmospheric, dark, and very cool song that they could never have made without the experimentation in that earlier album. As I mentioned above, this is also cool in that they have a Kid A-esque breakout in the middle, sandwiched between an opening reminiscent of recent R.E.M. and a closure that hearkens back to the earlier years.
10. Horse to Water. R.E.M. doesn't just make great music; they have also become master craftsmen when it comes to constructing the flow of an album. Sing For The Submarine is the last great song on the album, but it would end on a bad note. Horse to Water lets you center yourself and smile as the band gently pokes fun at themselves. It's a return to the fun, high-energy sound that has dominated Accelerate. "I might've kept my mouth shut," Stipe sings at one point, and I can imagine him thinking about this everytime he goes back into the studio. He doesn't have anything left to prove, he's just in it for the love of making music now.
11. I'm Gonna DJ. I think that this song will probably be the most controversial on the album. Your reaction to it will probably be the same as your reaction to The Outsiders on Around The Sun: Either it is an embarrassing attempt for the band to work with another genre; or else it is an interesting injection of decidedly non-R.E.M. influence that sets up a unique chemical reaction you won't ever see again. I lean towards the latter explanation.

Also, I love the funny yet defiant way that Stipe repeatedly sings "I'm not gonna go 'till I'm good and ready!" throughout the last song. Thank goodness for that! If history is any indication, he could very well be making great music for years to come, and I hope I can keep up with him and the rest of the band. Rock on!