Released in 2008, Accelerate was a new beginning for R.E.M. After four years of no new music they came back with an all new style that did not continue the sounds from their last few releases.
Accelerate seemed to be the hardest album to write about. I had a difficult time pinning down what I wanted to say about it. Perhaps the other albums being older and and the fact that I had lived with them so long meant I had pretty set feelings about them. I think another reason was due to the type of album that Accelerate was.
Around the Sun was criticized for being too bloated and slow, with no real cohesive theme. Apparently as a reaction to that Accelerate has much more basic, loud straight-forward rock songs. The problem is, I never felt those types of songs were REM's strength. It feels like instead of having fresh new ideas to work with, the band just decided to make the opposite of Around the Sun. The music, while energetic, falls a little flat to me. There is not enough variation between songs. Stipe works up some energy ripping into various targets, the most obvious being the George W Bush administration, but there is nothing really revealing in the lyrics.
As far as the songs themselves, there are some standouts. Hollow Man is one of my favorite “late" REM songs. Supernatural Superserious is fun and Accelerate does the best job of merging the urgency of the music with Stipe's singing. He does sound hoarse on many of the songs and sings in the kind of clipped manner he adopted on the later albums. I never cared for Mr. Richards, I'm gonna dj, or the other faster tempo songs, although Living Well is the Best Revenge has some good energy in it. Sing for the submarine might be the most interesting song, even though it's sound is actually more like Around the Sun than the rest of Accelerate. Interestingly I could never tell what the song was about even though the lyrics are printed in the sleeve.
That points to another issue with Accelerate. If the music was part of the problem on Around the Sun, the lyrics in Accelerate, while very direct, don’t really add much to the proceedings. It’s as if Stipe could have been singing about anything, as long as the music was loud and fast it was a new direction for the band.
I did enjoy the songs in concert, and the ones that are on the Live at the Olympia recording. Perhaps I’m trying to make too much of the album and I should be just going along and having fun with the return to faster, louder music and the not too deep lyrics. I guess maybe I had gotten used to a slower, quieter R.E.M. by the time Accelerate came out and I had a hard time buying into the idea that this was really were the band wanted to go and not felt they had to go.
Accelerate seemed to be the hardest album to write about. I had a difficult time pinning down what I wanted to say about it. Perhaps the other albums being older and and the fact that I had lived with them so long meant I had pretty set feelings about them. I think another reason was due to the type of album that Accelerate was.
ReplyDeleteAround the Sun was criticized for being too bloated and slow, with no real cohesive theme. Apparently as a reaction to that Accelerate has much more basic, loud straight-forward rock songs. The problem is, I never felt those types of songs were REM's strength. It feels like instead of having fresh new ideas to work with, the band just decided to make the opposite of Around the Sun. The music, while energetic, falls a little flat to me. There is not enough variation between songs. Stipe works up some energy ripping into various targets, the most obvious being the George W Bush administration, but there is nothing really revealing in the lyrics.
As far as the songs themselves, there are some standouts. Hollow Man is one of my favorite “late" REM songs. Supernatural Superserious is fun and Accelerate does the best job of merging the urgency of the music with Stipe's singing. He does sound hoarse on many of the songs and sings in the kind of clipped manner he adopted on the later albums. I never cared for Mr. Richards, I'm gonna dj, or the other faster tempo songs, although Living Well is the Best Revenge has some good energy in it. Sing for the submarine might be the most interesting song, even though it's sound is actually more like Around the Sun than the rest of Accelerate. Interestingly I could never tell what the song was about even though the lyrics are printed in the sleeve.
That points to another issue with Accelerate. If the music was part of the problem on Around the Sun, the lyrics in Accelerate, while very direct, don’t really add much to the proceedings. It’s as if Stipe could have been singing about anything, as long as the music was loud and fast it was a new direction for the band.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy the songs in concert, and the ones that are on the Live at the Olympia recording. Perhaps I’m trying to make too much of the album and I should be just going along and having fun with the return to faster, louder music and the not too deep lyrics. I guess maybe I had gotten used to a slower, quieter R.E.M. by the time Accelerate came out and I had a hard time buying into the idea that this was really were the band wanted to go and not felt they had to go.