Album Review: R.E.M, Accelerate
R.E.M. albums seem to come in one of two varieties: carefully composed or much more spontaneous. For the former category, think Murmur, Automatic for the People, or Up, and for the latter, Reckoning, Monster, and New Adventures in Hi Fi. Both styles have their fans; I had a roommate once who thought that Reckoning was their best album ever, which amazed me since I considered it one of their weakest. We agreed to disagree.
Accelerate falls firmly into the more spontaneous category, regrettably for me. The album has been heralded as a return to form for R.E.M, as opposed to their later, moody albums from 1999 on. And it is a return to form, in the sense of having harder percussion and louder guitars. The good news is that it's probably easy to predict if you'll like this album. If you think Monster was a great album, then you've gotta get this one. If Murmur is more your style, you may want to pass.
For me, R.E.M's strengths have always been melody, mood, and, in the early days, rhythm. None of those are really on display here. Most of the songs come off sounding flat, monotone, and, ultimately, empty. Only three songs hold my interest: Supernatural Serious, the hit song, the title track, and Hollow Man, which is good but sounds like they didn't work it out enough.
Speaking of Supernatural Serious, I have to dock this album extra points for its presence. The song has a totally different feel, and is orders of magnitude better, than the rest of the album. I hate it when bands salt an album with a hit song that has nothing to do with the rest of the album; I always feel like a sucker when I get excited about such a song. (On a side note, isn't it odd that R.E.M has had three transcendent pop songs in the last decade: The Great Beyond, Bad Day, and Supernatural Serious, and two were non-album tracks, and this one was barely so. Man, why don't they make a whole album with songs like those?)
Oh well, every R.E.M. album is different, so I'll pin my hopes on the next one.
Accelerate falls firmly into the more spontaneous category, regrettably for me. The album has been heralded as a return to form for R.E.M, as opposed to their later, moody albums from 1999 on. And it is a return to form, in the sense of having harder percussion and louder guitars. The good news is that it's probably easy to predict if you'll like this album. If you think Monster was a great album, then you've gotta get this one. If Murmur is more your style, you may want to pass.
For me, R.E.M's strengths have always been melody, mood, and, in the early days, rhythm. None of those are really on display here. Most of the songs come off sounding flat, monotone, and, ultimately, empty. Only three songs hold my interest: Supernatural Serious, the hit song, the title track, and Hollow Man, which is good but sounds like they didn't work it out enough.
Speaking of Supernatural Serious, I have to dock this album extra points for its presence. The song has a totally different feel, and is orders of magnitude better, than the rest of the album. I hate it when bands salt an album with a hit song that has nothing to do with the rest of the album; I always feel like a sucker when I get excited about such a song. (On a side note, isn't it odd that R.E.M has had three transcendent pop songs in the last decade: The Great Beyond, Bad Day, and Supernatural Serious, and two were non-album tracks, and this one was barely so. Man, why don't they make a whole album with songs like those?)
Oh well, every R.E.M. album is different, so I'll pin my hopes on the next one.
posted by Jim at
8:37 PM
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