Port Huron High sophomore Aimee Berryman reported to her friends today that she’s discovered a great new band from Athens, GA.
Berryman says she came across a band named “R.E.M.” when checking the iTunes store on Tuesday. “I rely entirely on iTunes to keep up to date with the hottest, most cutting-edge, and most subversive music around. If it wasn’t for the folks at iTunes who truly know what ‘underground’ and ‘anti-establishment’ mean, I’d be completely clueless about music history.”
According to Berryman, she purchased the band’s sophomore album Accelerate based on several disparate factors, including a quick listen to excerpts from the album, several breathless reviews posted on the popular music download site, and the fact that “the geeky-looking blonde-haired guy wearing the glasses looks like Ms. Villa, my Spanish teacher.”
Berryman readily admits that she has a long way to go in understanding this mysterious new band. “From what I can tell, they released one album a couple years ago that was poorly received. But what do you expect? How many bands’ first full length album is a classic that they then spend the next 25 years unfairly trying to live up to?”
The high school sophomore also confirms that Accelerate has been in heavy rotation on her iPod, alongside the likes of Beyonce, Fergie, and “some old-ass fossilized geezer named Dylan who my parents babble incessantly about. Whatever.”
Berryman also especially likes the brevity of the album; with 11 songs that clock in at about 35 minutes, it’s one of the shortest albums in her burgeoning iPod collection. Explains Berryman: “The length fits my attention span. Anything over that four-minute mark, and it’s time to check out. No thanks.”
The student believes that R.E.M. could be the precursor to a new musical style. “What the music world needs is a musical genre that specializes in songs less than three minutes in length that features aggressive guitars, nihilistic grandiose statements that decades later seem naïve and simplistic, and only three chords. Maybe there could even be a British version that in a little more than a year from its inception chokes to death on its own excesses and countless derivative copycat bands. Yeah, that’d be cool.”
Nevertheless, Berryman isn’t optimistic about the band’s chances of mainstream success. She feels that “a three-piece all-male band that doesn’t have either the backing of a major label or a carefully crafted and honed image as a true democratic band is at a disadvantage in today’s segmented and derivative radio airwaves. Plus, the lead singer is way too Moby bald to get on magazine covers.”
Berryman admits most of her friends are not on board with her new musical discovery. “Sometimes I’m able to turn my friends on to new music, like the time I discovered an unknown band named The Stooges. We all agreed that The Weirdness had to be just about the best thing they’d ever do.” But her friends remain unconvinced with the Athens band. Friend Quinlin Griffin thinks the band “will never have an unexpected hit song that features a mandolin, a somewhat controversial video that includes quasi-homo-erotic religious imagery, and obtuse lyrics based around Southern colloquialisms.”
Yet Berryman, who considers herself a budding music historian, remains undeterred and plans to dive deeper into the band’s small back catalog. In addition to downloading debut album Around The Sun, she plans to see the new band in concert. She’s quite convinced the band will remain largely unknown. “They’re having to tour with two other bands just to fill the space. You tell me: what chance does that type of band have of hitting the big time?”
Showing posts with label Accelerate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Accelerate. Show all posts
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Who Else Is Nervous? R.E.M.'s Upcoming Album
R.E.M.’s new album is coming out April 1. Entitled Accelerate, it follows hot on the heels of Around the Sun, which, um, stunk out loud.
I’m willing to bet many R.E.M. fans are nervous as hell. Maybe it’s because, to these ears, every R.E.M. album released since the underrated New Adventures In Hi Fi has been an unholy mixture of annoying blips, bleeps, and bloops that are oddly reminiscent of actor Michael Winslow (think Spaceballs). Maybe it’s because I have a lingering fear, perhaps shared by many R.E.M. fans but vocalized by few, that the band is simply irrelevant in the current music scene, or worse, incapable of delivering a quality album. Maybe it’s because I’m hesitant to pour more money into the iTunes beast for another underwhelming album from Stipe and Co.
Maybe.
But I simply cannot shake the feeling that many fans want Accelerate to be a great album for other reasons. For many music fans, R.E.M. was our first serious music addiction. Although I got into the game late – I was barely a teenager when I bought my first R.E.M. album, Out Of Time, in 1991 – I quickly devoured the back catalog and with much glee bought the concert tickets, t-shirts, and singles (“the b-side is a 1992 live performance of “Radio Free Europe”? They never play that! I gotta have it!”). I had much to learn.
Like many other R.E.M. junkies, my favorite concert memories are also tied to the band. The 1995 Monster tour stop in St. Louis was the first concert my brother and I attended. We blasted Automatic For The People from the car speakers as we drove (as much as you could blast that album, anyway). My friend showed up late due to his high school football game, still wearing his uniform, and only managed to hear the last few songs. His twin sister was even escorted out of the amphitheatre for, putting it in PG terms, inappropriate behavior during “Bang and Blame.” Even with this jail bait hiccup to deal with later, he was thrilled just to be there. To me, such devotion made total sense.I’ve been hooked on R.E.M. for the better part of my life. But like a trout plucked from the water by an enterprising fisherman, the problem is that the hook is now securely wedged into my lip. And it’s kinda painful.
The R.E.M. faithful among us who aren’t total jocksniffers haven’t had much to cheer for in more than a few years. It’s certainly been tough for R.E.M. fans. The occasional concert tour aside – as a live band R.E.M. still delivers the goods, even if Stipe does an excessive amount of posing and posturing – the band has been the equivalent of an 8-8 NFL team: some highs, some lows, and nothing much to get excited about.
Shows such as Family Guy and Saturday Night Live have taken potshots at the band (of course, if any show should refrain from making jokes about anything being irrelevant. it’s SNL). Sure, some aspects of R.E.M. are very easy to mock (Stipe’s tiny, bald, and looks like a low-rent stand-in for Mr. Clean), but I can’t help but think the jokes would have been far fewer if the band had released better albums in the last decade.I want Accelerate to be a great album. I want to again be reminded why R.E.M. essentially kick-started my addiction as a music fiend. I want to listen to a new R.E.M. album without feeling that I’m listening to a once-great band treading water at best and sinking fast at worst. And especially, I want the friends, acquaintances, and sworn enemies who come out of the woodwork to mock and humiliate me every time the band releases a new album to remain quiet for once.
I’m avoiding all pre-release reviews for Accelerate. I’m even avoiding the live shows where the new songs have been road tested. For all I know, advance reviews are gushing over the album like they did for Bruce Springsteen’s Magic or Neil Young’s Trans (wait, scratch that one). When April 1 arrives, I’ll join the legion of R.E.M. fans with crossed fingers as we listen to the new album and hope for the best...
I just hope we aren’t disappointed again.
I’m willing to bet many R.E.M. fans are nervous as hell. Maybe it’s because, to these ears, every R.E.M. album released since the underrated New Adventures In Hi Fi has been an unholy mixture of annoying blips, bleeps, and bloops that are oddly reminiscent of actor Michael Winslow (think Spaceballs). Maybe it’s because I have a lingering fear, perhaps shared by many R.E.M. fans but vocalized by few, that the band is simply irrelevant in the current music scene, or worse, incapable of delivering a quality album. Maybe it’s because I’m hesitant to pour more money into the iTunes beast for another underwhelming album from Stipe and Co.
Maybe.
But I simply cannot shake the feeling that many fans want Accelerate to be a great album for other reasons. For many music fans, R.E.M. was our first serious music addiction. Although I got into the game late – I was barely a teenager when I bought my first R.E.M. album, Out Of Time, in 1991 – I quickly devoured the back catalog and with much glee bought the concert tickets, t-shirts, and singles (“the b-side is a 1992 live performance of “Radio Free Europe”? They never play that! I gotta have it!”). I had much to learn.
Like many other R.E.M. junkies, my favorite concert memories are also tied to the band. The 1995 Monster tour stop in St. Louis was the first concert my brother and I attended. We blasted Automatic For The People from the car speakers as we drove (as much as you could blast that album, anyway). My friend showed up late due to his high school football game, still wearing his uniform, and only managed to hear the last few songs. His twin sister was even escorted out of the amphitheatre for, putting it in PG terms, inappropriate behavior during “Bang and Blame.” Even with this jail bait hiccup to deal with later, he was thrilled just to be there. To me, such devotion made total sense.I’ve been hooked on R.E.M. for the better part of my life. But like a trout plucked from the water by an enterprising fisherman, the problem is that the hook is now securely wedged into my lip. And it’s kinda painful.
The R.E.M. faithful among us who aren’t total jocksniffers haven’t had much to cheer for in more than a few years. It’s certainly been tough for R.E.M. fans. The occasional concert tour aside – as a live band R.E.M. still delivers the goods, even if Stipe does an excessive amount of posing and posturing – the band has been the equivalent of an 8-8 NFL team: some highs, some lows, and nothing much to get excited about.
Shows such as Family Guy and Saturday Night Live have taken potshots at the band (of course, if any show should refrain from making jokes about anything being irrelevant. it’s SNL). Sure, some aspects of R.E.M. are very easy to mock (Stipe’s tiny, bald, and looks like a low-rent stand-in for Mr. Clean), but I can’t help but think the jokes would have been far fewer if the band had released better albums in the last decade.I want Accelerate to be a great album. I want to again be reminded why R.E.M. essentially kick-started my addiction as a music fiend. I want to listen to a new R.E.M. album without feeling that I’m listening to a once-great band treading water at best and sinking fast at worst. And especially, I want the friends, acquaintances, and sworn enemies who come out of the woodwork to mock and humiliate me every time the band releases a new album to remain quiet for once.
I’m avoiding all pre-release reviews for Accelerate. I’m even avoiding the live shows where the new songs have been road tested. For all I know, advance reviews are gushing over the album like they did for Bruce Springsteen’s Magic or Neil Young’s Trans (wait, scratch that one). When April 1 arrives, I’ll join the legion of R.E.M. fans with crossed fingers as we listen to the new album and hope for the best...
I just hope we aren’t disappointed again.
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