R.E.M. Around the Sun

Welcome to, for lack of a better word, REM's "thorazine" album.  If the lyrics and feel of the album don't thoroughly depress you, its ploddingly slow pace and lack of any spark whatsoever will bore you to tears.  Acute clinical depression and the dumbing-down of the humanity in feelings - both wonderful and terrible and everything in-between.  But wait, you say, 'Automatic for the People', their last truly great effort, is all sad and melancholy.  Yes, but it's also beautiful and uplifting and totally embraces the human condition.  I love that album...I know that album...and, dear reader...this is no 'Automatic for the People'!  (Which, by the way, sounds superb on DVD-Audio.)

Michael Stipe comes up with some interesting lyrics at times, but, man, what a downer!  If you like the current single and video, "Leaving New York", trust me, absolutely nothing else here rises to its only half-arsed pseudo-melodicism and -accessability.   And the studio over-polish totally robs the music of any feeling of life, of sparkle, of spontaneity.  It's the aural equivalent of one of those paint-by-numbers kits - just don't go outside the lines.  Jeez!  Every little Peter Buck guitar snippet is so obviously studied and played by rote, so seemingly devoid of any feeling, it's painful.  Depressed android music - that's what it is - like Star Trek's Data after he got his emotion chip...only it's stuck on bummer, permanently.  And don't look for the patented REM jangle here, or the memorable melodies, or the enticing harmonies, or even the power-metal chords of 'Monster'.  It's all so flat, and quiet...and dark...and doom...and, oh gawd, I can't take it!  I feel bad enough about this world right now, thank you.  I don't need any help.  (I might suggest that lovers of Goth would take to this disc, but that would elevate the disc to a higher status than it deserves, or, conversely, rag on the dark-eyed ones undeservedly - take your pick.)

If you want to hear the sound of a once-great band growing old right before your ears, and accepting it, and hating it at the same time...this is the disc for you.  And, alright, just don't even get me started on the honest-to-goodness, I-can't-believe-it, actual RAP of guest, Q-Tip!  What were these guys thinking?!  Is this a pathetic attempt to sucker in the younger crowd?  REM?!  Well, just barely.  Guys, it's time to hang it up...well, past time, actually.

We have said that we do not write negative reviews.  Well, take this more as a warning than a negative review.  This album begs it!  It would be irresponsible to keep quiet in this case.  This writer has hung in there with REM through the only half-way decent albums since drummer Bill Berry left, hoping they'd find their footing again...hoping they still had that one great album left in them.  'Around the Sun' is a pathetic, but hopefully, mercifully, last gasp of the alt-rock godfathers from Athens , Georgia .  Rest in peace, REM.  Please!

By the way, the packaging sucks.  Digi-pak with a poster-sized, folded lyrics sheet just shoved in the middle - no pocket, no place to insert, to store the damn thing.  Ya think it might fall out every time you don't need it to?!  How much cheaper can you make these things?  How much would a gatefold sleeve or pocket have set them back?  Maybe they expect EVERYBODY to tack the poster on the wall, thus doing away with the problem.  Yeah, right.  Ultimate vanity?

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Release Date: October 05, 2004
Tracks: 13 - Time: 55:25
Produced by: Pat McCarthy & R.E.M.
Format: CD
Website: www.remhq.com

Special Edition:

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R.E.M.:

Michael Stipe - Vocals
Peter Buck - Guitar
Mike Mills - Bass / Keyboards