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| Artist: Rem
Label: Wea
Category: Music
List Price: £15.99
Buy New: £4.98
You Save: £11.01 (69%)
New (60) Used (16) from £2.89
Rating:  67 reviews
Sales Rank: 724
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.3
MPN: 418620
UPC: 093624988588
EAN: 0093624988588
ASIN: B0013BNY2Q
Release Date: March 31, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Don't buy without listening first! April 15, 2008
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
I can't understand what the hype is because this record is dull. Maybe people working for the record company are writing those five star reviews?? Another annoying thing is that this is yet another record with compressed sound, so it sounds loud.
 listen to the finest worksong April 14, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I too have been an REM fan since their early IRS days and approached 'Accelerate' with a certain amount of trepidation. I'd read the good reviews and the 'return to form' claims, but hadn't I heard the same thing about 'Around the Sun'? What a turkey that turned out to be. It's an indisputable fact that REM had failed to produce a decent album since the departure of Bill Berry and I'd given up all hope of them ever coming close to former glories. However, I can safely say that this time round you can believe the hype because 'Accelerate' is good. Infact it's astonishingly good and not just because it is such a huge improvement on its predecessor. 'Accelerate' stands alongside 'Document' and 'Lifes Rich Pageant' as one of their finest (half) hours. A bunch of fiftysomethings simply have no right to be producing something as urgent and vibrant as this.
A change in producer has obviously helped. I'm afraid I'm not enough of a muso to know whether the sound quality is 'over-compressed' or too 'loud' (don't you just turn it down?). All I know is it sounds fine to me.
And it's not all heads down mindless boogie either. Comparisons with 'Monster' are well off the mark. 'Accelerate' has far more in common with their early albums in terms of pacing and, infact, the best moments here are probably the slower, more reflective tracks. 'Hollow Man' recalls their early Byrds-influenced output, 'Houston' is a stunning slow-burner and in 'Until the Day is Done' we have a new REM anthem.
So is this the sound of a band who have compromised their artistic integrity in order to give the fans (and the record company) exactly what they want, or is it the sound of a band who after ten years of navel gazing have finally remembered what they were good at?
Who cares? This is one of their finest albums and easily one of the best you'll hear this year.
Great! April 14, 2008
4 out of 11 found this review helpful
I like REM because Micheal Stipe has a head very similar to Karl Pilkington's orange shaped bonce!
REM accelerate into reverse with crowd-pleasing but quality set April 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's difficult to know whether to applaud Stipe, Buck and Mills for coming out with their most solid and succinct piece of work since Bill Berry's exit, or whether to frown at the extent to which they've been content to conform to most people's idea of what an REM album should be.
Yes, Accelerate is a return to form: strong, muscular, intense and powerful. It's also concise at 34 minutes and apparently took just nine days to record. Eschewing the experimentation of every album since Up, they've perhaps finally made the wilder follow-up to Automatic for the People that Monster so flagrantly failed to be.
Accelerate can be downright mouthy: Man-Sized Wreath violently rejects elder-statesman conceit and the post-punk sensibilities of Horse To Water seems to dare imitators and interpreters to match up. Musically, the sound of the band here reflects who they are in a live context: impassioned, intense, full of driving, droning guitars, the fires of the creative trio powerfully stoked by ex-Ministry drummer Bill Rieflin.
Lyrically, it's a dense and literary work, drawing on quotations from English metaphysical poet George Herbert's Jacula Pudentum in the opening track's title "Living Well Is The Best Revenge" and referencing American novelists Sinclair Lewis and William Burroughs as well as Victorian conjuror Harry Houdini on the lyrics sheet.
That's not to say it's in any way limp or over-intellectualised. Stipe certainly seems to be asking more questions of himself than ever: self-flagellating in Hollow Man, diving into dream imagery in Sing For The Submarine, begging for answers in Accelerate ("Where is the rip cord, the trap door, the key, where is the cartoon escape hatch for me?") He sounds permanently angry, alive, vividly in the moment, supported by some great backing vocals from Mike Mills.
Yes, this is a quintessential REM album, distilling most of the elements of what's made them one of the all-time great bands. If it turned out to be their last defiant rejection of age and decline, it would make a peerless exit. But somehow, I think there's more to come.
The three-legged dog recreate their best tricks and learn a few new ones on the way... April 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
What a great album! I've heard it quite a few times now and am starting to really love it - although it made an instant impact on me the very first time I gave it a spin, the songs are sinking in a little more now and it may even be my favourite R.E.M. album since Monster.
The ones to really stand out so far are;
* Man-Sized Wreath, which truly is classic infectious R.E.M. - just fantastic and clearly the stand-out track on the album. It is a brilliant creative culmination, a genuine moment of collective magic from all of the group and some of Mike's inventive bass work sounds a little mid-60s McCartney-esque.
* Hollow Man, which really does sound like some of their best output from the mid-80s and features some delicious bass playing from Mike Mills. I love it.
* Houston, nearly almost solely for the instrumentation - the combination of organ, acoustic guitar and mandolin in the chorus, although the gloomy song is rather excellent as well.
* Until The Day Is Done - musically, I love the contrast between the verse and the chorus (this could easily be a track on either Out Of Time or Automatic For The People), and the lyrics, whilst commenting on the times we're living in, are pessimistic and detached.
* Mr. Richards is very catchy and, being based around themes on one chord for much of the song, it is quite sonically mesmerising.
* Sing For The Submarine, with a different production treatment, could sit comfortably on Reveal and the more I listen to this one, the more I like it - a real grower.
* I'm Gonna DJ, despite the terrible title, is a good rocker and is lifted by some great bass and the 'woo-hoo's in the background.
The more I listen to the album, the more I think that Supernatural Superserious was a curious pick for the initial single as there are, in my opinion, at least half a dozen better songs to 'promote' this album with. It's still a fine song, though.
I'm really very happy with Accelerate and it's probably the best album of 2008 for me so far. After the 'mature' lush sounds of Reveal and Around The Sun, it's fantastic to hear R.E.M. return to their rockier sound and, from the feel of some of the tracks, their roots. The times when they do give into their almost punkier excesses work because of the overall balance of the album.
Welcome back, R.E.M. - not that you've ever been away, of course..!
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