It's still a dog : R.E.M. find hope despite the (recent) times. There's a well worn concept in music criticism - one probably applied more rigidly to rock than anywhere else - known as 'the career arc'. Variations can be found, but the most commonly utilised version follows thusly:
a) underground darlings
b) slow move to alt.mainstream / mainstream-mainstream recognition
c) big album explosion / 'biggest band in the world'
d) more 'selective' appeal / shadow of artistic and/or commercial self
e) honorary elders of rock, feted for growing old gracefully.
Whilst there is also many an example you could use to illustrate this, it could be argued that - at least currently - R.E.M. represent the condition more so than most. The real question is, can they finally tick box e, having struggled trapped in box d (at least on record) for the best part of a decade. Before I bore you with what will probably be another precis of what has brought about that decade of artistic inertia, without indulging once again my theories on critical revisionism (or how we crap on those who have served us best for the slightest errant move), I do need to admit that personally I will put the Murmur to Automatic For The People run up there with pretty much any decade long run of albums you care to mention. I'd also contend that New Adventures in Hi-Fi, a vastly underrated album then and now, would have extended that run had it not been predeced by the self-consciously glam/grunge hybrid that was Monster (not a bad record in itself, but certainly strained and contrived in areas).
What is also true however, is that the real monster that has dogged the latter part of the band's career has been the departure of Bill Berry in 1997, and the inescapable ceasura it created between the light and the shade of their output. The first three albums the triumvirate R.E.M. put out have seen a band floundering, unsure of where to go, of who to be, of exactly what that band is now supposed to represent. Up and Reveal would have both made good 5 or 6 track ep's, characterised as they both were by distinct high points surrounded by muddled lethargy. Stick Leaving New York and The Ascent Of Man (from the otherwise dreary and anaemic Around The Sun) on, and you could cobble together a good post-Berry R.E.M. sampler - but still something well below that which went before.
So now they're back. Again. With another new modus operandi designed to kick start the creative motors, embodied by the 'live rehearsal' week in Dublin last year. The fact that those shows, and the new songs aired within, were greeted with no short measure of positivity bode well, but then again, R.E.M.'s live chops have never really been in question. It's actually all about how - IF - they could take this new impetus and allow it to invigour and embolden them in the studio, rather than be hamstrung once more by the studio environment. Let's face it, making an off-the-cuff, punky, live sounding record can end up sounding utterly contrived if not handled correctly.
The album is, from the off, fast and furious, (except in the areas where it's fucking fast, and the odd part which is a bit slower). Opener Living Well Is The Best Revenge comes out of the speakers like it's just shot Marvin in the face, a bastard cousin of Iggy's Funtime, the intro all Buck's razor-edged jangles, and Mills' high end bass notes tumbling and cascading down the scale, as Stipe's declamatory hollering bashes its way through. Man-sized Wreath follows a similar path, with shears of guitar underpinning the verses, before the chorus bounces in with Mills' long harmonising "Ah"'s perfectly underscoring the chorus and its exultation of 'kicking out on the dancefloor like you just dont care'. Michael...I've seen you dance......
One of the frustraions of the R.E.M. of the last 10 years has been that the lead singles have been false promises - Imitation Of Life, Daysleeper, and Leaving New York promised much and the rest delivered little. Certainly Supernatural Superserious meets the first criteria, another perfect choice for a lead track, not as intense and rasping as much of the rest of the album, but ebullient and melodic. The sombre piano opening of Hollow Man does give you the willies a bit, puts the "Shit the bed lads, not again" monkey in the room, but its a great false start, its simplicity and shifts in pace offering patches of breath from the overall rush without losing the momentum.
Houston introduces more shifts of pace as we hit the mid-section of the record, takes the pace down, mixing high end organ with low, coarsing guitar, reminiscent of the cello on Sweetness Follows. There is an obvious reference to open with ('if the storm doesn't kill me the government will'), Stipe the polemicist back, but the actual song taps into a more personal sense ('I've got to get that out of my head'), a perspective of and from the south of America, not dwelling on the damage the politicians did in the aftermath of Katrina. Yes it is bluntly acknowledging that damage but spends more time on, however cliched it might sound, the spirit of the people and places Stipe connects with, strong in the face of the weakness and disregard of their leaders, the strength of the associations he has with the places winning out over the desolation -
'Houston is filled with promise....And Galveston sings like that song that I loved
It's meaning has not been erased...' .
Similar pronouncements are made on Until The Day Is Done ; think the undulating acoustic guitar of Swan Swan H, the deep atmospherics of Drive, but without the layers and layers that you might have come to expect over recent years, allowing full rein to Stipe's treatise on how 'the verdict is dire, the country's in ruins / providence blinked facing the sun' - this contexting of 'providence', the foreseeing care and guidance of God or nature over the creatures of the earth, which 'America Inc.' specifically reserves for itself above any other, damns the gap illuminated between what is projected, and what actually is. Mr.Richards follows on and makes something out of the wasted melody that made up Chorus and the Ring, a tepid drawl from Reveal, and continues its examination of the body politic, reminding the titluar every-politician that 'you're mistaken if you think we'll just forget.... Pay attention...we know what's going on'.
Sing for the Submarine stands out due to being more dense and obtuse, with an instrumental breakdown akin to something Comets On Fire would work out for about half an hour, all mountainous drums and searing guitars, falling into a plucked, doleful resolution. Lyrically its more of Stipe's opacity, but punctuated with telling self references to 'electron blue', how he can 'feel gravity's pull' and 'the world as we know it, the high speed train, we'll pick it all up and start again'. The relative calm is forgotten with the closing tracks however ; Horse To Water is a flail of crunching guitars and breakneck drums, and closer I'm Gonna DJ is daffy and teasingly throwaway, but perhaps, given its recent tenure in the R.E.M. live set is a testament to how much the live experience has informed this record - so why not finish it in the same way. And then its all over, in just over half an hour! I'd defy most to not just put it on again. And again.....
Accelerate is a wonderful balance of nods, glances and in some places heavy leaps towards former glories, but ones imbued with a confidence and belief that produce R.E.M.'s most cohesive record since Automatic..., their ballsiest record since Life's Rich Pageant. It's no blithe patchwork of old references, more a joyous celebration of the freeing potency of reconnection, both the nub of the problem and the epiphanous movement forward being best described in the title track, which has riding on top of its juggernauting drums and excoriating guitars lines such as 'Where is the rip cord, the trap door, the key?
Where is cartoon escape hatch for me?
No time to question the choices I make
I've got to fall in another direction....accelerate'.
Thankfully, eventually, they've only just gone and cracked it haven't they - and cracked it hard! Yes, they have done so by tapping into their past, but in doing so have released themselves from that fruitless identity quest they were on, and have discovered that what was important about the Stipe quote of 1998 , "A three legged dog is still a dog, it just has to learn to run differently", was not the latter part but the former. It's still a dog, its ability to run is instinctive. R.E.M. forgot what they were due to assumptions that they would have learn to be something different in order to survive. They have reminded not only us, but themselves why they were, and thankfully are once more, such an important band.
Label: Warners
### R.E.M. Accelerate: Previews of Every Song ###
### Download R.E.M. Accelerate
ARTIST : R.E.M
TITLE : Accelerate
LABEL : Warner Bros
GENRE : Rock
BITRATE : 208 kbps avg
SOURCE : CD (LP)
PLAYTIME : 00:34:34 (54.6MB)
STORE DATE : 2008-03-30
Track List ----------
1. Living Well Is The Best Revenge 3:12
2. Man-Sized Wreath 2:33
3. Supernatural Superserious 3:23
4. Hollow Man 2:39
5. Houston 2:05
6. Accelerate 3:33
7. Until The Day Is Done 4:08
8. Mr. Richards 3:46
9. Sing For The Submarine 4:50
10. Horse To Water 2:18
11. I'm Gonna Dj 2:07
Produced by Jacknife Lee & R.E.M. www.remhq.com
Download Links:http://rapidshare.com/files/99852551/-Accel3rate.rar.html
1 comments:
Finally!!! Thank you for an excellent and very detailled (and right) review of this masterpiece. You should teach classes on how to review an album.
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