R.E.M. - Accelerate
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Free Music Notes for Accelerate
Free Music Review: REM should Reconstruct this Fable
Hit: 1 Stars
This is the absolute worst sounding mix I have heard on a modern recording to date. I have been mixing for over 25 years and know when the buyers have been duped! They made great songs and then the record label cuts about 5 of them off the album and throws this recording to the Ipod generation! A whopping 35 minutes long. What is that? Is this an EP or a full length recording? This was mixed to sound good on an MP3 player and radio not on a compact disc or LP. They are pandering to the people that buy one song at a time off Itunes instead of making the recording for the record collectors. What a sad day when great music gets ruined by such a horrible engineer like Jacknife Lee. I thought REM would know better. See what other fans are saying, go to REM's forum pages and check out all the complaints from other fans there.Free Music Review: REM Needs a Reconstruction for this Fable.
Hit: 1 Stars
[...] This is the second cd I bought this week that sounds like the recording mastering was done by monkeys. The other was the Breeders Mountain Battles. Why must good songs be ruined by sound that is unbearable? I find myself listening to this cd very quietly after MUCH EQ fiddling. Its like the cd is daring me to jam out to the amazing songs but when I do I get punished with eardrum shattering distortion. How can some bands let the record companies turn their art into 35 minute sonic crap sandwiches? Man I thought REM would know better. Shame on all the bands and labels lately trying to swindle us with these cost cutting 35 minute recordings and LOUDER is better mastering. REM needs to add a few tracks to this cd and remaster it!Free Music Review: The Best Revenge
Hit: 5 Stars
I am always wary of the "comeback" record, although enough of my old favorites have experienced recent late-career renaissance periods to open my mind a bit to the concept (a great example of this, by the way, is Ray Davies's new album Working Man's Cafe). I was particularly wary in the case of REM, however, because of what I call the "Monster phenomenon." REM dropped the Monster album after recording two quiet, primarily acoustic albums (Out Of Time and Automatic For The People) in the early 90s. I recall that this album was billed as a return to more of a pure rock style but turned out to be very different than REM's earlier work. At the time I enjoyed it but it hasn't aged as well as their earlier work and the band itself moved away quickly from this sound with the far superior New Adventures in Hi-Fi which was sort of a concept disc about the road.
So when I saw how much press this one was getting for its "return to the basics" I was a bit apprehensive. Still curious enough to buy a copy, but half-thinking it'd be in the used bins in less than a week. Was I ever wrong in that judgment!
This album hit me from the get-go and didn't let up. I felt the old excitement that discovering a new REM album would bring to me back in the day, back in high school when my friends and I traded tapes of albums like Document and Green. In fact, those albums are a direct parallel to what I heard here. This is the true return to form that "Monster" wasn't. Michael's lyrics are once again razor-sharp and directed outwards at the world around him (as opposed to the insularity present on more recent efforts like Up and Reveal, or the terrible Around The Sun). When he does choose an inward focus (as on the heartfelt "Hollow Man"), the message stands out in stark relief from the songs around it and is that much stronger for it. The real treat here comes with the last five songs. "Until The Day Is Done" is a beautiful, mournful reflection on our times which would fit in perfectly on Automatic For The People. "Mr. Richards" is one of the most effectively pointed criticisms of the greed-oriented mindset that besets the modern business world that I have ever heard put to music (who IS this Mr. Richards anyway?). The album then veers beautifully into a deep, rich, haunting jangle-pop sound that references the band's very early work (Fables Of The Reconstruction) with "Sing For The Submarine" (catch the "Gravity's Pull" reference, old fans, and rejoice!) before upping the ante with the punkish "Horse To Water" (perhaps the best song on here, which would fit perfectly on Document or Life's Rich Pageant) and concluding with the fun, catchy "I'm Gonna DJ." What a finish - if there were any doubts about REM's renewed relevance, this "second side" of the album dispels them all.
Unlike some reviewers here I don't find any of this music to sound forced or studied - in fact the feel is quite the opposite. This is the sound of a band with something to prove - that being their relevance after years of growing soft around the middle. When cornered they just let it all loose with renewed purpose and the result is jaw-dropping. Who knew they still had it in them? This album once again sounds like REM, the band founded by a man who threw up the first time he heard Patti Smith, and who loved the Velvet Underground. I am proud to shelve this alongside Murmur, Reckoning, Life's Rich Pageant, Automatic For The People, and a slew of other life-changing recordings that have consistently made this one of the essential bands in my music-loving life. Welcome back my friends and may you churn out more great American music with heart and conscience for years to come.
Free Music Review: Yes Yes Yes!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
I have been a fan of R.E.M. from their inception and I can't express how happy I am to see them return to their roots. After ending up in the limbo state of Up, Reval, and Around The Sun, they have finally shaken off their introspective experimental chains and returned to what they do best. Every track on thsi album seems to blow back to Monster, one of their best works. But there is no need to compare it to their past works, this is just an amazing album. Welcome back R.E.M.!Free Music Review: REM's Accelerate - Deccelerate
Hit: 2 Stars
I loved REM when they first came out. I had all their first albums, CD's. They sounded fresh, had good melodies and their music really moved. The last few CD's they made I thought were boring. This one had one good song - Supernatural Superserious. The other songs, are nice, but I wouldn't buy them, for I would never listen to them again. They just don't do anything interesting anymore.