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-   -   R.E.M. "Around the Sun" lp - October 5, 2004 (https://forum.dvdtalk.com/music-talk/378444-r-e-m-around-sun-lp-october-5-2004-a.html)

ChiTownAbs, Inc 09-27-04 05:20 AM

FYI -- Around the Sun Redux is available on iTunes for free download until tomorrow.

Edit: It's just a "sampler" track. All the tracks meshed into one 3 minute "song"

cungar 09-28-04 02:38 PM

That's about as much as you need to hear.

Toka 09-28-04 04:13 PM

Well, for what its worth, we got the full copy in at work today and my co-worker (big REM fan) likes it...I'm not a fan so I'll just leave my opinion out of it. :) But, he seems pleased...probably worth a shot!

cungar 09-30-04 10:21 AM

BRUTAL REVIEW from allmusic.com:
 
2 stars

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Ten years after the commercial zenith of Monster and seven years after the departure of linchpin Bill Berry, R.E.M. have never seemed as directionless as they do on their 13th album, Around the Sun. To a certain extent, R.E.M. have seemed unsure ever since Monster — sporadically brilliant as it is, New Adventures in Hi-Fi was an effort to clear the decks and redefine the band in the wake of its breakthrough to superstar status. It pointed in a few directions the group could follow, but Berry left the band before they could follow those paths, leaving Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe at a bit of a loss on what to do next. They initially responded with the overly experimental, overly serious Up in 1998, which gave way to the classicist Reveal in 2001. While these two records were of a piece — heavy on keyboards, containing far more deliberate performances than anything recorded with Berry — they had different characters and feels, which was not unusual for R.E.M.; since the careening, ragged Reckoning followed the hazy, dreamlike Murmur, each album had an element of a surprise, offering something different than what came before. That's not the case with Around the Sun, which refines and polishes the blueprint of Reveal to the point that Q-Tip's rap on "The Outsiders" fades into the background as if it were another overdubbed keyboard or acoustic guitar. This is as slow and ballad-heavy as Automatic for the People, but where that album was filled with raw emotion and weird detours, Around the Sun is tasteful and streamlined, from its fussy production to its somber songwriting. Automatic may have been obsessed with death and regret, but it was empathetic and comforting. In contrast, Around the Sun offers no weighty themes — it dabbles in politics and relationships, but the lyrics never seem to mesh with the music — and it's emotionally removed, keeping listeners at a considerable distance. Here, R.E.M. write songs like craftsmen without distinction — the songs are sturdily constructed but bland, lacking musical and lyrical hooks. The band sound as if they were going through the motions, hoping to save the tunes in the mix. With their layered, low-key production, R.E.M. seem hell-bent on leaving behind anything that could be construed as their signature sound, so keyboards and drum machines are pushed to the front as Buck's guitar strums instead of jangles and Mills' background vocals are buried in the mix under Stipe's double-tracked harmonies. Change is all well and good, but this doesn't feel like organic change; it feels like the end result of too many hours in the studio tinkering with synthesizers and overdubs, resulting in a record as studiously serious as Wilco but as radio-friendly as U2. By straddling these two extremes, R.E.M. wind up with a record that's neither fish nor fowl — all the quirks in the production have been sanded down and glossed over so it can slip right onto adult alternative rock airwaves, but it's too insular, too overthought to appeal to either a wide audience or R.E.M.'s dwindling cult following.

slane 10-05-04 05:39 AM

I've been a huge fan of REM for years. Their last two albums, since the departure of Bill Berry have been very dissapointing but this one is really excellent. Sod the reviews, good or bad, buy this album if you have ever liked REM it's wonderful.

The Antipodean 10-05-04 04:51 PM

I quite liked "Reveal" myself, but this one's dull as dishwater so far. More fool me.

dolphinboy 10-05-04 08:18 PM

I agree with the review completely. I think it's their worst album. I'm also glad some people don't think Monster was a bad record. It still holds up well, despite the fact even the band members don't seem to like it. They might go back to listen to some of it before making another album. This cd is boring and uninspired.

Nabalab 10-05-04 11:21 PM


Originally posted by dolphinboy
I agree with the review completely. I think it's their worst album. I'm also glad some people don't think Monster was a bad record. It still holds up well, despite the fact even the band members don't seem to like it. They might go back to listen to some of it before making another album. This cd is boring and uninspired.
I only listened to it once so far and I agree that it is boring and it's lacking something - maybe heavier instruments...LOL.

As a fan of "newer" REM (Document and after), "Monster" is one of my favorite albums. The only songs that I'm really not crazy about on that album are "Strange Currencies" and "You".

auto 10-07-04 11:47 AM

Upon initial listens, it's not great but it will definitely grow on me. Some very good songs, some lackluster. Already, though, I prefer it to Reveal.

Frank TJ Mackey 10-07-04 03:12 PM

Yeah, the new album might be considered boring because it's a slower tempo album, but I really like it.

Then again, I also really like Reveal as well.

I hated UP though.

auto 10-08-04 10:48 AM

from pitchforkmedia.com

R.E.M.
Around the Sun
[Warner Bros; 2004]
Rating: 5.2

After the surprise departure of drummer Bill Berry, the remaining members of R.E.M. found themselves unmoored and adrift both professionally and musically. They had always presented R.E.M. as a cohesive, democratic whole, with all four members receiving equal songwriting credit. Despite their one-time vow not to move forward as anything but a quartet, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe stuck it out after Berry left. Some fans considered this to be an unfortunate decision, but the remaining members seemed to view it as an opportunity to redefine their sound. R.E.M.'s first post-Berry album, 1998's Up, picked up not where its predecessor, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, left off, but where Radiohead's OK Computer did, with the trio taking a touristic trip into synths, programmed beats, and sound effects, and quoting Pet Sounds almost verbatim on "At My Most Beautiful". It sounded like a transitional record, but then so did the follow-up, Reveal.

On their third post-Berry album, Around the Sun, Buck, Mills, and Stipe have settled on an uneasy mixture of textureless production and tentative stabs at past glory. On lead track and first single, "Leaving New York", Stipe harmonizes with himself in a low voice that could have been sampled from Reckoning. "Final Straw" borrows its whirling organ from Out of Time's "Low", and Q-Tip's cameo on "The Outsider" recalls KRS-One's appearance on "Radio Song". Around the Sun sounds more straightforward than its two predecessors, however none of the instruments-- including Stipe's voice-- sound live or organic. Instead, they have a sparkling sheen, which has never been the best trait for either Stipe's vocals or Buck's usually piercing guitar.

Concurrent with the band's move away from its rootsy jangle was a trend in Stipe's songwriting toward the blandly declarative, which began with "Everybody Hurts". Each subsequent album has contained more and more full-sentence song titles-- "You're in the Air", "I've Been High", "She Just Wants to Be", "I'll Take the Rain", etc. This tendency seems foreign and unexpected coming from a songwriter who in the past sounded unwilling to settle for easy answers, and who even parsed the difference between asking and telling on "Fall on Me".

Perhaps it's impending middle age, perhaps it's the empty drum stool, or perhaps it's Stipe's role as the pop culture attache for the American political left, but his lyrics have become lazily explanatory: No longer content to question the world, Stipe seems intent on simply describing it, often in the most anodyne terms. "It's harder to leave than to be left behind," he sings on "Leaving New York". Elsewhere, he says, "Open up your eyes/ You're so alive" ("Aftermath"), "There's love at the end of the line" ("High Speed Train"), and, "Some things don't hold up over the course of a lifetime" ("Worst Joke Ever"). Too often Stipe sounds like a parent passing on received wisdom to children. At worst, this tendency is grossly arrogant; at best, it's merely complacent, as if success has excused R.E.M. from searching beyond platitudes.

But Around the Sun manages to overcome at least some of its shortcomings thanks to Stipe's new role as shunned lover. Having once promised he would never write a love song-- or lip-sync in a video, or carry on past 1999, or play as a trio-- he sounds very new to the form, and songs like "Make It All OK" and "High Speed Train" even sound endearingly awkward and vulnerable.

Elsewhere, Stipe's love songs are more cryptic. On "The Outsiders", he sings about meeting someone for dinner and getting life-changing news, but he never reveals the terrible secret. "Make It All OK"-- about recriminations between lovers-- gives Stipe his best line: He answers rejection with the taunt, "Jesus loves me fine." His tone is so self-serious that the song sounds bled of its humor, pathos approaching bathos. But Stipe's romantic confusion-- and the unprecedented hints at what may or may not be his personal life-- gives "Make It All OK" and "Aftermath" a prismatically emotional quality, their flaws so naked that they become strengths.

It's too bad the same can't be said of Around the Sun in its entirety. Its chief problem is that every word, every note, and every instrument sounds dry, sapped of most of their personality. Whereas R.E.M. were once Southern eccentrics trying to figure things out, and making lasting music in the process, lately they sound neither Southern nor eccentric and, more to the point, their music is far from memorable.

-Stephen M. Deusner, October 5th, 2004

MurraySiskind 10-13-04 09:50 PM

For the most part I agree with this review. The confessional aspect of Stipe's lyrics is bland and unoriginal. But after listening to this for a week I'm beginning to really like it. Like any good cd, the more you listen to it the more you recognize the nuances and subtleties that you missed upon first listening. I think its a strong record, not a classic, but better than Up and Reveal.

auto 10-15-04 12:40 PM

After several listens I am really enjoying:

Leaving NY, The Outsiders, Final Straw, I Wanted to be Wrong, The Boy in the Well, High Speed Train & Around the Sun.

I really like High Speed Train.

On par if not better than the last two albums.

MurraySiskind 10-16-04 05:27 PM

I Wanted to be wrong, Ascent of Man, High speed train are all highlights for me.

I would like to know how Q-tip's rap on the Outsiders came about. It sounds good but it also just sounds tacked on, like the song existed in one version then they added that rap to it later. I don't really see what purpose it serves.

And for the most part I really like Final Straw, but that line where he says, "love will be my strongest weapon", makes me cringe.


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