The Last Thing I Remember Was Climbing Up the Stairs, I Threw the Window Open In Challenge and Despair

(R.E.M., Accelerate)

REM has long been one of my favorite bands. In high school, they were THE band, for sure my favorite, hands down, above all others. I even went to one of their concerts my sophomore year of college BY MYSELF, because I couldn't find anyone else that wanted to go, but I needed to see them that badly that I was willing to go stand there alone and enjoy the music. And it was unreal. Since college, though, I haven't listened to them much, possibly because the albums they have put out since New Adventures In Hi-Fi (1996) have been about as much fun as listening to John Kerry talk about just about anything.

That's why I was super-excited for the release of Accelerate, their 14th studio album, and first since 2004's Around the Sun. I'd heard that it was a more upbeat, rock-driven album. Even the title suggested that the band was kicking it up a notch. I read yesterday that Pitchfork gave it a 6.7 out of 10, which I figured was just their usual snobbery talking, and I'd decide for myself. I downloaded (legally, of course) the album after I got home from work yesterday, and over the course of the past 20 hours or so, I've listened to it about four times. And I have to say, I think Pitchfork might have nailed it.

I don't want to say this was a lazy effort by the band, because I don't think it was, but I read that they made a conscious effort not to "overtinker" the songs on this album, and I think these songs might have benefitted from a bit more tinkering, or at least some "let's sleep on this album for a few weeks and really think about it before it's release."

Accelerate, the title track, is a good one and my early favorite. I also like Houston and Until the Day is Done. I don't know if I like those best because they are the best, or because they are the 5th, 6th, and 7th songs on the album, which I hear after the initial feeling of disappointment fades, but before it picks up again toward the end of the album. The two bonus tracks stand out as well, but not on their own merit. Redhead Walking lifts the drum beat directly from Santana's Oye Como Va, and Airliner is a 50's-ish guitar/drum collaboration, without lyrics, that brings to mind their own Underneath the Bunker, from Life's Rich Pageant, released in 1986, which is kind of a shame, because the association only makes me think about what a far superior album Pageant was (probably their second best, and only because nothing is going to overtake 1987's Document).

It is definitely an improvement on their last three albums, though. And they've definitely remedied whatever doldrums they'd been stuck in, as most of the songs are fast, fuel-injected, and heavy on the guitar. I like it, but I don't love it. Maybe the lyrics are a bit forced, or maybe they're better suited, at this point in their careers, making the music that comes natural to them, but these songs don't feel too natural. The songs are all pretty short (half of them checking in at under 3 minutes), but they feel a little pushy. I don't want to be pushed through a rock and roll song, I want to be pulled into it. I want to be led. Bruce Springsteen doesn't push you into a rock song. Bono doesn't push you, he pulls you in with both hands.

I bring up Bono and The Boss, though, because I think I might like Accelerate a little better in a few months. When U2 released How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in 2004, I wasn't a huge fan. But after a few listens, then shelving it for a year or two before breaking it out again, I rediscovered it with a much greater sense of appreciation, and now I probably listen to it more than any of their other albums aside from The Joshua Tree (which will go down in history as the greatest album of my generation). I had a similar (but speedier) experience with Bruce Springsteen's Magic, released last year. On the first few listens, I thought it was a good but not great album, with not enough "classic" in the classic rock. But over the past two or three months, it's been heavy in my rotation, and I would even go so far as to say that three or four of the songs on the album are some of his greats.

So, bottom line, it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully I'll have the chance to see them when they pass through Atlanta later this summer, and hopefully Accelerate will grow on me a bit. I have a feeling it probably will, but for now, I might have to let it steep a bit more.

In the meantime, in honor of the release of their 14th studio album, here's a list of my Top 14 favorite REM songs, in no particular order. Enjoy.

I Believe (Life's Rich Pageant)
Radio Free Europe (Murmur)
The One I Love (Document)
Disturbance At the Heron House (Document)
Fall On Me (Life's Rich Pageant)
Don't Go Back to Rockville (Reckoning)
Get Up (Green)
Driver 8 (Fables of the Reconstruction)
Try Not to Breathe (Automatic For the People)
Nightswimming (Automatic For the People)
Exhuming McCarthy (Document)
Man On the Moon (Automatic For the People)
Crush With Eyeliner (Monster)
Orange Crush (Green)