R.E.M. - Accelerate

Whether or not you like R.E.M., you cannot deny the catchiness that they have, and the infectious feeling that songs like "It's the end of the world (and I don't care)", or "Man on the Moon" have. The instant feeling to make you want to jump up and sing along to their tunes.

After their first album in years, an attempt to rehash their repuation (after a collosal failure called Around the Sun), REM release their new album since 2004 called "Accelerate".




As the opening track "Living Well is the Best Revenge" cues in, and the vocals start- you can tell that they're just having fun at this point. The vocals (though seriously written, and written well) sound like he's seen the world and he's bringing back the gift of a light-hearted nature.

While the tracks progress, you can notice the songs feel like they're having callbacks. The chorus of "Supernatural Superserious" sounds strikingly similar to that of the song "Stand"- but a good song nonetheless, and is also the first music video for the new album:



The song "Houston" is played via an acoustic guitar, but with an organ and drum kit backing it up- it gives a very bluesy psuedo-guerrilla feel while making Michael Stipe pull off his traditional raspy-yet-harmonic voice echo that only he could pull off.

In many albums the title track is usually the pinnacle of the album, and often the reason they've named the album after a song so respected in their own magnitude... Though sometimes that song will turn out to be a bit wretched and you can't wait for it to be over, as is the case with the title track "Accelerate", which apparently just seems to repeat the chorus indefinitely over it's three minute span, which I ask why they'd name their album over such a shitty, shitty song.

After the title track, the song "Mr. Richards" comes on, and is probably my favorite track from the album- albeit it may also be the most simple one- simply written, but wonderfully played and sung by all involved with it.

Probably the biggest surprise is the song "I'm Gonna DJ", which is constant drum and rhythm the entire time while Michael Stipe sings affection ally over the entire song.

Though the album is a bit lackluster, it's still a great album. No one can ever deny the writing abilities of Michael Stipe and company. It's nice to see them writing and performing again, but it's a bit depressing knowing they'll NEVER write anything nearly as amazing as they did "back in the day", so to speak- they're an amazing band, and it's hard to understand that those years of brilliant writing are very well behind them, but it's opened up a new door of experimentation- as long as they learn that songs like "I'm Gonna DJ" could be their future- they'll be fine.

Final score: 7.5/10