R.E.M. - Accelerate
List Price:
Our Price: $2.97
You Save: $11.01 (79%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
CD Details
Artist: R.E.M.Brand: R.E.M.
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Published: 2008-03-28
CD Release Date: 2008-04-01
Music Label: Warner Bros / Wea
Product features:
- R. E. M. ACCELERATE
- Living Well Is The Best Revenge
- Man-Sized Wreath
- Supernatural Superserious
- Hollow Man
- Houston
- Accelerate
- Until The Day Is Done
- Mr. Richards
- Sing For The Submarine
- Horse To Water
- I'm Gonna DJ
Music reviews of Accelerate
Music Review: A Blast From the Past
Rating: 3 Stars
REM finally throws a bone to the fans who prefer the Bill Berry days. A 35 minute bone that shows the sheer lack of interest these guys have at making this type of record. Did the big boys at Warner Bros threaten to drop them if they didn't stop crafting post-post-modern 21st Century pop 'masterpieces' and would just make something more 'REM-like'? I'm no insider. I have no idea, but if so, REM must have responded... ok... here you go, squatted for a few minutes and pooped out some REM songs just like old times.
Again, I have no ties to the inside of Michael Stipes eyelids, but I would not be surprised if the lyrics to this album is stuff Michael Stipe had in his old journals sitting around for forever that he dusted off for this fun exercise in nostalgia. The whole album sounds kinda like digested stuff they've done a couple of times before, doesn't it? Even the song 'Sing for the Submarine' contains lyrical nods to past REM songs. It's the End of the World as We Know It and I'm Going to DJ? Notice a retreaded theme there? At the end of the album no less.
Here's a breakdown of the album tracks and the album/period they most sound like:
Living Well... - Life's Rich Pageant
Man-Sized Wreath - Green
Supernatural Superserious - Automatic for the People
Hollow Man - Up meets Reckoning
Houston - New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Accelerate - Monster
Until the Day Is Done - Out of Time
Mr. Richards - Monster meets Reveal
Sing for the Submarine - Murmur meets Around the Sun
Horse to Water - Fables
I'm Gonna DJ - Green
I admit there are a few nice musical moments on this disc. 'Accelerate' hints at something much more powerful that REM could be focused on. The album as a whole is not by any means terrible. This short disc (e.p.?) sounds passably like REM is 'supposed' to sound and no, not in the 'Imitation of Life' way either (REM paroding itself). Here they're really trying to be REM again.
Sidebar: If you get the deluxe version, you get to see the film '6 Days' which, I'm sorry to say, but honestly it's pretentious garbage. Just as the CD does not contain an album's worth of material, the DVD, despite its title, does not seem to contain excerpts from 6 days worth of video.
What it does have is REM's 'I hate America' stance. Peter Buck reveals that if he didn't have family and friends in the U.S. he would move, being so disgusted with the politics of it all. At least he has a choice, being uh.. a rich rock star fed by the Capitalist system he loathes so. Gag.
There is some almost interesting stuff from their Dublin 'non-shows' and we are supposed to think it is cool to see a creative process where they are getting feedback, trying out the new songs. But I don't think REM invented this way of doing things. A lot of other artists actually play new songs live to audiences and change them up along the way before recording them in a studio for an album. It's like REM baked bread, took a knife to it, cut it into thin sections, and said- 'look what I just invented! sliced bread!' Yeah.. no.
Oh, and watching Michael Stipe drive around... someplace.. Dublin? is exceedingly boring. And he needs to stop smoking. And I really really like experimental cinema. This 6 Days thing was just.. nothing really. It didn't have one thing going for it.. actually, I fell asleep about 3/4 the way through it. It was uncompelling and seemed lost between overly artsy, self-consciously artistic, minimalistically creative, painfully politically protesty, or all of these things rolled together and moving at a snail's pace then, when it did do anything tangible, with the attention deficit disorder factor on 5 (for those unfamiliar, that's one of the highest settings). A full version of a live song would have been nice, but no... we have to cut from the music so we can here William Burroughs or someone talking about how America sucks or whatever. Boring boring boring. I'm not a flag-waver, but come on... REM's past political statements all have been very powerful due to their symbolic, truly beautiful or intense and artistic nature (Cuyahoga... Exhuming McCarthy). In 'Six Days' they're just griping and trying to pretend that they hate America. Uh... is that because you're being paid in U.S. dollars and not Euros, Peter?
But back to the music... if you have just the CD, good for you, you saved some money (though you missed out on two halfway decent B-sides that were thrown in on the DVD). But, basically, the album should have three or for more solid songs to be ... no, not a great album.. no, not a good album... but how about an album at all. My suggestion is for them to rent a cheap studio put a few more songs together and offer them up for download.
Then, cull the best of the Dublin shows and offer that as a live DVD release. Yeah... wow.
Description of Accelerate
Accelerate the first studio album in four years from R.E.M., finds modern rock?s most acclaimed band returning to the stripped-down, guitar-driven power that first enraptured fans. Helmed by the band and, for the first time, Jacknife Lee (co-producer of U2?s ?05 Grammy® Album Of The Year How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, The Hives and Snow Patrol), Accelerate puts the 2007 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame group once again firmly behind the wheel of alternative rock, a genre R.E.M. helped invent.Accelerate is available as a CD-only in a Softpak; a CD+DVD that features a 64-page book and the Vincent Moon film 6 Days (which includes behind-the-scenes footage and performance pieces of various songs on the album) plus two bonus tracks "Red Head Walking" and "Airliner."
R.E.M. Photos
 |  |
 |  |
 Accelerate |  Up (CD + DVD+A) (Dig) |  Up |  Reveal (Limited Edition) |  Reveal (CD & DVD Audio) [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] |
 Reveal |  Out of Time (CD + DVD-A) (Dig) [ENHANCED] |  New Adventures in Hi Fi (CD + DVD+A) (Dig) [ENHANCED] |  New Adventures in Hi-Fi |  Monster (CD + DVD+ A) (Dig) |
 Monster |  In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 |  In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 (Special Edition) |  In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 |  Green (CD + DVD-A) (Dig) |
 Green |  Automatic for the People (CD & DVD Audio) |  Automatic for the People |  Around the Sun [SPECIAL EDITION] |  Around the Sun [ENHANCED] |
 Around the Sun |  R.E.M. Live 2CD/1DVD [LIVE] |
In the decade since the departure of drummer Bill Berry, R.E.M. could seem at times schizophrenic. Their albums of the era, which veered from the experimentalism of Up and reaffirmation of Reveal to 2004's more diffuse, reflective Around the Sun, often stood in stark contrast to the vibrancy of their live act. But here the alt-rock godfathers have resolved that dichotomy with their most focused and satisfying album in over a decade; a collection that doesn't so much revisit the bracing ethos of the band's '80s coming-of-age, as boil it down to its essence and supercharge it with the energy of their contemporary stage shows. That sensibility is evident from the opening track, "Living Well's the Best Revenge," where Peter Buck's aggressive, distortion-drenched riffs and Michael Stipe's gruff snarl set the tone for "Mansized Wreath," "Horse to Water," and "Supernatural Serious"; rockers that bristle with the abandonment and aggressive energy of a band half their tenure. Yet it's no mere blast-from-the-past. The inclusion of the band's recent touring musicians (Scott McCaughey on second guitar and drummer Bill Rieflin) into the session mix, as well as working out much of the material live onstage in Dublin, has yielded something more sonically akin to R.E.M. 2.2. Stipe's penchant for the lyrically opaque has been largely supplanted by an edgy, articulate passion that variously explores "Houston'"s displaced Katrina refugees, the bluegrass-tinged "Until the Day is Done," and the more typical, quiet self-examination of "Hollow Man," before exploding in the album's unlikely, upbeat elegy "I'm Gonna DJ," where singer and band find renewed hope in not only music, but themselves. --Jerry McCulley
Alternative Rock CDs
Music Genres
Bestsellers in Alternative Rock CDs
Bouncing Souls - Maniacal LaughterRelease date: 1996-01-26; Music CD
Best price: $30.00
Blondie - Parallel LinesRelease date: 1994-07-29; Music CD
Best price: $397.77
Doors - L.A. WomanRelease date: 1993-04-09; Music CD
Best price: $199.99
Amon Duul - Phallus DeiRelease date: 1997-04-08; Music CD
Price in other shops:
Tangerine Dream - MelroseRelease date: 1990-10-02; Music CD
Best price: $74.98
Tangerine Dream - Private Music of Tangerine DreamRelease date: 1992-11-10; Music CD
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
![Ska Explosion [VHS] Image](/images/Ska-Explosion-VHS-6303381014-X.jpg){kind=small}
Ska Explosion [VHS]Cleopatra; Release date: 1995-02-28; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops:
![Little Earthquakes [VHS] Image](/images/Little-Earthquakes-VHS-6302488664-X.jpg){kind=small}
Little Earthquakes [VHS]Atlantic / Wea; Release date: 1992-11-10; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops:
Exileby Geoffrey Oryema
Music CD
Best price: $4.95
![Louder Than Live [VHS] Image](/images/Louder-Than-Live-VHS-6301627865-X.jpg){kind=small}
Soundgarden - Louder Than Live [VHS]A&M Video; Release date: 1991-07-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Similar CDs
Rem - Dead Letter OfficeRe; Release date: 1990-10-25; Music CD
Best price: $4.40
Price in other shops:
Rem - Out of TimeR.E.M.; Release date: 1991-03-12; Music CD
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops:
Rem - Fables of the ReconstructionRelease date: 1998-01-27; Music CD
Best price: $6.09
Price in other shops:
Rem - MurmurRe; Release date: 1990-10-25; Music CD
Best price: $2.70
Price in other shops:
Rem - ReckoningRe; Release date: 1990-10-25; Music CD
Best price: $4.05
Price in other shops:
R.e.m. - RevealRelease date: 2001-05-15; Music CD
Best price: $4.16
Price in other shops:
R.E.M. - Around the SunRelease date: 2004-10-05; Music CD
Best price: $3.83
Price in other shops:
R. E. M. - Automatic for the PeopleRelease date: 1992-10-06; Published: 1993-07-20; Music CD
Best price: $4.09
Price in other shops:
Rem - New Adventures in Hi FiRelease date: 1996-09-10; Published: 2001; Music CD
Best price: $4.11
Price in other shops:
R.E.M. - Collapse into NowRelease date: 2011-03-08; Music CD
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: