I picked up a copy of R.E.M.’s (relatively) new album, Accelerate, this afternoon – the first R.E.M. album I’ve bought since Monster in 1994. Which sort of fits into the conventional storyline about R.E.M. (Monster sold well, but was a disappointment, and the fans never came back), but it’s not really true in my case – the fact that I had Monster at all seemed more of an act of nostalgia at the time, as I’d already lost interest in the band several years before.
(long, pointless, wanky walk down memory lane below the fold …)
Green
I discovered R.E.M. sometime around 1987 the way all 15-year-old boys discover “underground” bands – by pilfering their older brother’s cassette collection when he goes to college – and my peak R.E.M. years were something like 1987 to 1991. And Green in 1988 was actually the last new album I bought during that era, because though I was still interested when Out Of Time came out in ‘91, I was lacking funds, and what money I had was going to newer, more exciting bands. When Automatic For The People came out in ‘92, I pretty much ignored it – lead single “Drive” just sounded so tired and dispirited that I pretty much gave up on the band, even though I actually liked the subsequent singles.
Monster
By the time Monster came out, I was out of college and probably feeling a little nostalgic (around the same time I filled in the holes in my collection, picking up Out Of Time, Automatic For The People, and Reckoning, the only early album I hadn’t owned). I also liked the slightly off-kilter video for “What’s The Frequency Kenneth?”, which generally kept the band’s heads out of the frame but pushed their rock-n’-roll side to the fore. I frankly don’t really remember my first reaction to the album much, and it’s possible that I gave it a couple perfunctory listens and then concentrated on other recent purchases. But ultimately I’d decided that the record was boring, and by the time New Adventures in Hi-Fi came along in ‘96, I’d completely lost interest. I’d stopped listening to commercial radio, so I never heard any of its singles, but I also never sought them out. I’d moved on.
When Accelerate came out earlier this year, there was some hype about it as a “return to form”, but I didn’t pay much attention to it – if you grew up in the 80’s and read Rolling Stone magazine, you got used to every new album by an aging, past-his-prime artist getting hyped as a comeback, and learned to ignore such things – but I did listen to the streaming preview of the album on iLike, and was pleased with the riff-heavy sound and punkish velocity. Since then, I’ve been hearing bits and pieces off it in random circumstances, particularily “Supernatural Superserious” – most recently in the supermarket the other day, when I more or less decided on the spot that maybe I should pick up the album.
There’s no real point to this post, I guess I just wanted to get all nostalgic and self-reflexive. But I’ll leave you off with this great video, in case you haven’t seen it … the band’s first appearance on national TV, playing “Radio Free Europe” on David Letterman’s show in 1983. I love this video – for a band that seemed so spooky and mysterious on record back then, they sure looked like a rock n’ roll band live.
