R.E.M. – Around the Sun – 2004
Peter Buck said that for him Around the Sun “… just wasn’t really listenable, because it sounds like what it is, a bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can’t stand it anymore.”
Well, that just about says it, don’t it?
I’m nothing if not a completist so here I go:
1. Leaving New York – Pleasant mid-tempo piece, Stipe is all misty and nostalgic. There’s nothing oblique or abstract here. Stipe is as earnest as he’s ever been. More so. Not a great opener, but I’ve given up waiting for “Radio Free Europe” or “Begin the Begin”.
2. Electron Blue – REM is lousy with songs wherein Michael Stipe tells someone that they are great, can be great, will be great, buck up, cheer up, etc. He’s taken the role of top of the pyramid mother to the nth degree. Here’s another one. Rest assured it won’t be the last. Yawn. The electro-pop production does nothing for me. Or the song.
3. The Outsiders – Why, why, why???? Did you learn NOTHING from “Radio Song”? Q-Tip? Really??!? Oh, man, talk about a band out of touch….
4. Make it All Okay – From PopSongs: “Make It All OK” seems to exist as though to prove [Chuck Klosterman’s] point [about manufactured, fake love]. Its sound is pure “fake love” — if there was a video for it, it would have to look exactly like an episode of Dawson’s Creek or Grey’s Anatomy. (Only worse. – me)
5. Final Straw – The instrumentation on this song, particularly Buck’s country acoustic seems at odds with Stipe’s lyrics. I don’t know that they even need each other anymore. Certainly this song would benefit from a different set of lyrics and a different singer. A shame, really.
6. I Wanted to Be Wrong – A half baked anti-Bush America song. I imagine it’s hard to be in REM at this point in time. They started with a fire and fury in Reagan’s American. They carried the banner through 11 years of that shit, with stuff to write about and sing about and then there was triumph. The Clinton years were a validation of much of what REM was about. Sure, it didn’t create Utopia but it was a better America than the one that preceded it. Then the Bush years happened and the telecommunications act of 96 and vertical integration and boy bands and Fox News and, well, it’s like the 90s never happened. Their response? Pap like this. They don’t have the fire anymore. They are just tired. And don’t know how to play this game. They’re not relevant anymore. They’re old….
7. Wanderlust – An almost honky-tonk track that can’t fully commit. They’re just gonna put the tip in….
8. Boy in the Well – It’s haunting to be sure. There’s no real there there. They’ve done this better. Truth is the music is REM by the numbers, the lyrics are just terrible, though.
[I really miss Bill Berry…..]
9. Aftermath – Pleasant, mid-tempo rocker. There’s no hook, nothing to catch on to, not sure why there’s no chorus as the song seems to be begging for one. It’s harmless, toothless and uninteresting.
10. High Speed Train – Starts off as the ugliest song in the group’s entire catalog then becomes one of the most boring, then just goes away. Finally.
11. The Worst Joke Ever – Oh, dear. Aimless and dependent on murky, oceanic production. Maybe they were listening to U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind a bit too much. It really doesn’t work. At all.
12. The Ascent of Man – Reaching for croon, Stipe almost sounds alive on this one. There’s movement, some sex appeal, some sway and swagger. It’s a little too little too late. But it does feel like its trying.
13. Around The Sun – The first song for which an REM album is named. I think they were just too bored to come up with a title. This is Across the Universe if it was poorly written by bored millionaires with a contractual obligation.
Around the Sun is awful.
Grade: D-
ASide: Leaving New York
BlindSide: I Just Wanted to Be Wrong
Downside: The Outsiders, Make it All Okay, Boy in the Well, High Speed Train, The Worst Joke Ever
