R.E.M. "Around The Sun" - the verdict

I thought that was a silly rumor.

And it's track FOUR that starts like Mariah.

The Q-Tip bit is basically him rapping over a slowish 80s soft rock thing - it took me completely by surprise as the song actually seems to end just before it, and then starts up again. Its not very good but not as awful as KRS-1 on Radio Song.

Electron Blue is nice though. And the first half is quite pretty in a way which may grow on me hugely. Second half mostly just plain clumsy and tedious.

it's all rather sad, and i was soooo hoping it wouldn't go this way.

news that they would be headlining next year's lancs. cricket ground gigs was front page news in manchester's local paper mindyou.

come back monster-era all is forgiven.

I never thought I'd agree with such a sentiment, but here I am.

But most posters here, for whatever reasons, are very un-optimistic about an album that they have not heard yet.

It's not so depressing. I mean, it's their thirteenth album. I like REM, but I can't say that I'm super excited about it either. I certainly don't want a "return to Monster days," though. To me, that was their worst period (though not all that bad). Up and Reveal are, I think, better than Monster and New Adventures.

This is the first R.E.M. album that I've ever not liked at all. Reveal, as boring as it is, had some decent songs on it. I could respect Reveal. They're just phoning it in now.

This record just doesn't work. "Electron Blue" is halfway interesting and is by far the best song on the record, but if it were on Up (much less one of the classic albums), it'd just sound like filler. "Leaving New York" and "The Boy In The Well" aren't terrible, but are just too sappy and overwrought. "Leaving New York" in particular sounds like something that they'd play in a 'dramatic episode' of Friends or something. "The Outsiders" at least sounds like they were trying, though it's not very successful - it's too drab and plodding. Q Tip isn't totally cringe-inducing, but the 'now we are playing a hip hop beat' that starts just before he comes in definitely is. Sorry, nice try. Respect to Q Tip for being brave enough to rap on an REM album, though. Jay-Z and Ludacris probably didn't return their calls.

(It does make me wish that they just went all the way and hired out Lil Jon to do some kind of perverse crunk song - "Skeet In The Place Where You Live!")

Most of the songs just plod along, daring the listener to care. They aren't catchy, but they aren't devoid of melody. They are theoretically pop songs, but it's just a lot of numbness.

I understand what you mean, though - the production is so cluttered that it almost blurs together. Their songs keep getting more droney and less dynamic. That's a big problem for them.

"'Leaving New York' in particular sounds like something that they'd play in a 'dramatic episode' of Friends or something."

Exactly! That's why it's so great! I mean, it is that, but it's that DONE WELL.

as a band, i think they've evolved too much over the course of their career to ever do the former (this isn't like some post-punk heroes emerging after a decade-long hiatus just to prove they can play the exact same songs just as well as ever)...however, i really love to see them do the latter, certainly not in the "Lil Jon remix" sense, cuz they would look like asses, but just the idea of Stipe singing over Prefuse 73 beats or something would at least be tenfold improvement on the noxious tastefulness of Around the Sun.

I really doubt that they're consciously calculating their style. I'm sure they just collect instruments and equipment that interests them and play around, trying to write songs.

And they're good at it and that's why I like 'em!

"Bang and Blame" sounded awfully like "Losing my Religion" (Em-Am).

Matthew, I hope what you say is not true. Their albums have been hugely successful in Europe. I'm sure they've brought in a lot of money.

i hear the same strum pattern then and a lot of the same inflections in stipe's voice in it.

I always remember Peter Buck saying that his band was capable of making an album as good as Astral Weeks. Each passing release proves him more and more wrong...

One of the keys to making an album like that, of course, is the lyrics. And Michael Stipe hasn't been delivering something like that. Doesn't mean I don't like what he does.

(Not x-post): It's a "return to roots" album? How so?

Buck never thought so. I don't really either.

Well, whenever they talk about it, they seem very proud of their European success (and they should be, really), but it's always brought up in a defensive way in the US press - "yeah, but "The Great Beyond" is our biggest hit ever in...England, Reveal is huge...in Italy!" I don't think people in America take that stuff very seriously, because we're all used to "but we're big in Germany!" jokes. America is ultimately the big important market to crack, especially for American bands.

I don't hear much of any similarity between "Leaving NY" and "Losing My Religion."

For some reason I picked this one off the shelves for the first time in 5 yrs recently - what an album! I must've not taken notice at the time, because this is a revelation. A fair bit of postpunk stuff going on there - Wire (obv) and Joy Div (that track with the rumbling drums that sound like Atrocity Exhibition - what's it called). But that's not really why I like it so much - it's the choruses and melodies. HUGE!

The one with the rumbling drums would be Undertow - right?

Aftermath is the one that strikes me as a potential single, and I quite like the Final Straw and Electron Blue as well. Everything else, meh.

I'm okay with "Aftermath." That's one of the better songs, for sure.

I have a real love for New Adventures in Hi-Fi but I seem like I'm in the minority.

I love Hi-FI too.

This really is their best album since leaving IRS and may even be better than most of the ones previous. It's certainly the one that has gotten the most play in my house over that time. I don't see how anything other than "e-bow" could be called plodding -- and even that accusation falls apart on closer inspection. long != plodding. but i think it's the first time since he went for clarity over mud that stipe's lyrics worked consistently entirely across an album. i also wonder what bill berry's contribution was here.

Joseph, you were calling Monster plodding. I don't see how it's more plodding than New Adventures. Seems less so to me (and yes, that is partly a matter of length).

What is the best way to poke out one's mind's eye?

Why is that?

Good to see all the Up and Reveal love coming from myself.

I was just listening to Reveal. I have no idea why someone would say that there is ANY qualitative difference between this album and that alleged masterpiece, Automatic for the People.

R.E.M. obviously became a muzak group on Out of Time. Monster was an ill-focused attempt at becoming a four piece rock band again (but still a good album). New Adventures in Hi-Fi was the transition album (back to muzak land!).

have you ever actually listened to this album?

"new test leper" and "how the west was won" would not work as backgroud music. they both have a hell of a lot more lyrical and musical substance to them than what would usually be pigeonholed as muzak.

while, i can totally hear "leaving new york" in my dentist's office. i can totally hear most of reveal and up while waiting in line at my bank i don't think any of new adventures would work in similar settings.

If the tracklisting of Around The Sun were up to me, it'd be:

01 Leaving New York
02 Electron Blue
03 Animal
04 I Wanted To Be Wrong
05 The Boy In The Well
06 Aftermath
07 Wanderlust
08 Final Straw
09 Ascent Of Man
10 Around The Sun

It still wouldn't be that great of an album, but it'd be easier to take for sure.

Fridmann, Mick Harvey... hell, get Lindsey Buckingham to produce! That would kill the overdub rule, but I bet the results would sound great.

I'd recommend that they work with the Spoon guys. Their production style is really minimal, and emphasizes clarity of composition and well-recorded, prominent percussion. That's exactly what they need.

then i bought Up and Reveal under similarly situations -- 3 months after release -- discount table -- priced to go

it makes me think that REM with their contract from at least Up but possibly back further are allowed to dictate distribution. The Clash forcing their record prices down led me to buy Sandanista! for an inflation adjusted US$0.5 and LOndon Calling had also been sold at a Clash adjusted price.

to me, they recognise they're rich enough and so relese their music and just avoid taking a loss, or maybe run albums at a loss, as vanity projects (!) -- artistic cruise control -- especially if the album is leaked as here

i think they'd be happy for expenses to be covered and then at that point just give away their music -- and i don't think they give it away or not depending on their own aesthetic feelings about their work, or guess that it's "good" or "bad" -- maybe they have to produce one good album in five (a bit like the Luis Buunel setup)

whatever, i don't think they care about the norms of the corporate rock machine anymore having delivered $$$$$$ with Monster and Automatic, aren't obliged to meet target sales levels etc -- radiohead can spout "no corporate logos" and support Napster for one album and then "get difficult" but they haven't made enough money yet whereas REM seem to be the real deal with slow insidious strategies of ideas dissemination, as if this is the "contractual obligation two singles" album in the scheme -- i'm just guessing (and don't for a moment think radiohead are in the same league any way anyway)

(i have not bought the new album for another two-three months for obvious reasons so _have_ _not_ _heard_ _it_ -- i don't have access to the "leaks" -- this is all just speculation)

certainly MOR music will get picked up by many more radio stations, keeping REM brand as reminder to all the "rites of passage"-based occasional fans they can rely on for occasional pickup -- "Wake Up Bomb" was perfectly produced and a great song but too negative sounding for mass airplay (as predicted in the songs title) -- i assume they would wish all their songs to be wake up bombs and operate on that basis (but obv. mostly avoiding the deliberate "fallout" of that song) -- REM as careerists impress me and so i hope they can produce such a "bomb" that can be dropped on their potentially u2 sized äudience elegantly (unlike their peers u2)

It seems like maybe it's their time again. They were old news for a while and now maybe they can be in style again.

They're still, like, the greatest.

Oh, and people need to stop saying "At My Most Beautiful" "sounds like Brian Wilson". It doesn't. It sounds like a pile of shit. Fuck that song.

I blame it on Michael Stipe singing lullabies. There are a few great moments on the new one where his voice takes on some drama and it hearkens back to something they once had. A fly by the seat of your pants aggressive kind of thing. But it's there very intermittantly these days. Musically, I like Reveal and Up just fine. Vocally, all I can say is they're kind of pretty.

uh, i'm pretty sure Capitol/EMI's made a fuck load of money off of their world wide radiohead deal.

They've managed maybe three up-to-Berry-era-par songs by my count since he split.

OTM, though the key word there is maybe

if they can define a new "intelligent" ambient or MOR music by using MOR/am heuristics in surprising ways, they're still open to a much wider audience

i say : get the fans back (like you had them in '95 with the "whoppers" Monster, Automatic & Out Time) and once you have them listening to you at the 50,000 festival gig, do something really weird/ interesting/ punk, like i-dunno, howabout Stipe singing in falsetto like Barry Gibb ? and singing new non-abstract styled odd stories -- straightforward vocal stuff that aggresively addresses the audience using simple repetetive words and mantras -- "Paperback Writer" type songs (in falsetto) ?

really, stipe's word association is still much more aesthetically pleasing than most rap, but i think the audience would like less whining and sarcasm -- the audience does not trust Stipe, trust he earned but now needs to reclaim -- as for the "can't be bothered" tone, leave that to under-achievers sonic youth

i wish they would dominate world pop again and i wish the world had gone with REM rather than u2.

Is anyone with me on this???

Here's a live review I posted on the Springsteen thread:
http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/pscholtes/2004/10/12

I've come to really like some of the songs - "Electron Blue," "The Boy In The Well," "Wanderlust," "Aftermath," "Around The Sun" - but I can't fathom anyone seriously thinking that this is the band's best work. You've heard Green and Document and Fables Of The Reconstruction, right?

"Ascent Of Man" is just okay. I don't hate "Leaving NY" or "Final Straw," but I don't enjoy them.

I don't like "Make It All OK," "The Outsiders," "High Speed Train," or "Worst Joke Ever" at all. If they weren't on the album, I wouldn't feel so icky about it.

Specifically, speak to how it has a stonger overall scope than New Adventures in Hi-Fi, k? tnx. bye.

So there.

Re. album sequencing: Notable that Reveal and Around the Sun have both been shorter than New Adventures and Up. Did they really pull off a compelling longer album length programme that well on New Adventures and Up? (I actually think Up pulls it off a little better!)

http://www.flakmag.com/music/remats.html
http://www.indielondon.co.uk/music/cd_REM_around_sun.html

I wonder what the critical reaction was to it over there. Not in England, but in the rest of Europe. Was over there in November and heard "Leaving New York" twice on the radio and I just thought, "Yeah, REM makes sense over here."

It's also interesting that Geir Hongro likes this album.

i probably will, even though i'm discovering where tim's tastes and mine diverge. i think i might agree with tim more if i knew r.e.m. were self-consciously pursuing lounge as a new pop perversion. i'm not convinced that they are.

I really love about half of Reveal. "I've Been High," "Imitation of Life," and "The Lifting" in particular.

One thing I really like about post-Berry R.E.M. is how the lyrics are so often about being enthusiastic and hopeful for the future. There's this warm, open-hearted optimism that I find very rare in other music. It's always been there in Stipe, but now he's really embraced it. So many of the songs are like kind advice from a good friend.

I think that if they wanted to, they might be able to revive this record a bit if they pushed "Around The Sun" or "I Wanted To Be Wrong" and pushed it on another tv promo tour and played a series of small theatre shows in America. They need to stop playing such large places - when the tickets move slowly, it makes them seem like big has-beens. If they play small rooms and become a hot ticket, it's so much better for their reputation.

I love Stipe's taste in suits, but I could do without the make-up.

But every situation is different. Somehow, people bought that color scheme and those graphics as a representation of that music. I don't think they bought the sort of Postal Service modernism as a representation of the music on Around the Sun.

Wait. What?

I keep making my self by imagining "The Outsiders" with a spoken intro where someone says "Hey. I can't find nuttin on tha radio" to which Q-Tip replies, "Uh. Yo, turn to dat station." Cause that would totally fucking rule.

Interestingly, it seems like a lot of the hardcore Murmurs.com type REM fans really love "The Outsiders."

I think there are songs on New Adventures that are worse than either "Make It All Okay" or "Worst Joke Ever."

xp

Hookless, Reveal pt. II.

otm. so bland. perfectly inoffensive AAA smooth pop. and, since they all go nowhere, the songs are at least a minute too long.

100% OTM

"Welcome to the Occupation," actually.

"Welcome to the Occupation," actually.
right, thanks!

There have been less compelling songs with each succesive album, and thus less reasons to give each album a shot, despite the interesting sonic pallete they've grown into.

Since Bill Berry left they have usually had one "Classic REM" sounding song per album, (Daysleeper and Imitation of Life), as if to say "hey we might sound different but we're still the REM you know and love", but on my few listenings of Around the Sun I can't find one song that sounds like "REM", or even that has a great hook that gives me any sort of feeling. it just seems so uninviting.

I think it might be because Michael Stipe makes his melodies uneccesarily complicated, or at least unnatural sounding. Its like they aren't songs anymore, but notes that his voice plays.

but maybe its just because i don't want to put in the effort, because being an REM fan just doesn't seem that urgent. but pop music shouldn't take effort.

Monster and New Adventures are WARM records.

or maybe everybody really just wants their REM with lots of upfront rockin' guitar, but are just too "open-minded" to admit it. i think most people were quite happy with Bad Day and maybe it just primed the audience for the wrong sort of thing.

I agree with this statement. I'd say the same of the title track as well.

xp

Anyway, the point was not about the material on Around the Sun (which some seem to like and some do not) so much as the production and the idea that it could have come out more lively somehow.

That said, I'm looking forward to the next one. I'll never learn.

and i noticed that it really doesn't sound too crazy different from older mellower REM songs, just more lifeless. i think whoever said Stipe's vocal delivery is the problem might be OTM.

like,"i wanted to be wrong" while the verses sure as hell sound like "classic REM", the song as a whole seems flat and drab, which seems like a fairly new phenomenon for REM.

although, i don't hear how "around the sun" sounds like anything REM has done pre-UP, but maybe i'm just being dense.

speaking of UP, it has songs which i think are superb )"why not smile") and pretty damn good ("at my most beautiful") which would fit on this album and are way better than anything on this album, so its not like the lack of Bill Berry is the problem.

anyways, i really want to like this album, maybe i'll try it on headphones..

From what I've heard (acccidental exposure at Borders during the time of release), I thought "The Outsiders" and "Electron Blue" sounded like the most vaguely non-boring tracks. The Q-Tip bit, it's not terrible, it's just not particularly interesting.

Around the Sun is a step forward because it is a move away from the Up/Reveal aesthetic. Post-Bill Berry, R.E.M. bought into a vision of alt-rock albums as bland modernist sonic hodgepodges a la Radiohead - a sort of treatment of alt-rock in its recorded form as electronica, but lacking whatever modernist appeal was actually going on in techno during these years.

They are so talented that they transcend this aesthetic context a lot on Up and Reveal with really strong compositional materials (especially, I think, on Reveal, on which Michael Stipe moved away from the longer narratives on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up and the songs tightened up as pop structures). But the aesthetic context of those albums - that bland alt-rock electronica - is important and I believe that people's opinions on these two albums hedge a lotl on their feelings about that genre.

Around the Sun is bland, too; it's basically a blander version of Automatic for the People. But I think R.E.M. are a really good muzak group and muzak is an area where they can excel, whereas they seemed more like dabblers in the whole *treatment of alt-rock as sonic hodgepodge electronica* thing.