Living Well Is The Best Revenge!

Awesome.

I am so glad that the R.E.M. I have known is back, and they for sure have accelerated! I had preordered their new album Accelerate (which I received yesterday) - and I am happy. The album is really really good - so good that I want to listen to it again and again. Thank God for that!

I must admit that I did not really enjoy their last 3 albums. It all started with Up, and boy, was that a disappointment. After New Adventures in Hi-Fi, I was expecting something that would be one level "up", a more exciting, more rawking album (thanks Dani). But it made me cry. But I was not ready to accept that the album was zilch. I was so strongly attached to R.E.M. that I believed whatever they said about experimenting with their music and all that jazz.

When I heard Reveal, I totally lost focus. The album was a mish mash of nonsense, stupidity, and perhaps a little overconfidence on R.E.M.'s part for thinking that this record would do wonders. It does have a few good songs, but overall it's so not R.E.M.

Around the Sun was good. Not excellent, but good. It's slow overall, but atleast I could play the CD from start to finish without losing my mind. However, deep down inside I was a little sad, simply because I missed the R.E.M. that rocked. I missed the energy that Michael Stipe showed when he had longer hair. I missed the guitar riffs that Peter Buck played when he was leaner. I missed the bass lines Mike Mills played when he used to wear cowboy suits. I missed (and would still miss) the drum beats by Bill Berry without any emotions on his face.

After these albums, I was pretty sure that R.E.M. had mellowed down with age, and that I would have to get used to listening to their "piano riffs" and Stipe's voice filled with pain and sadness.

Well, thank God they accelerated!

Accelerate is old wine in a new bottle. The old R.E.M. is back - the mid 80s R.E.M. , and they rrrroocckk!!!! Since yesterday I have been listening only to Accelerate, and loving every bit of it! Songs worth mentioning are Hollow Man, Supernatural Superserious, Living Well Is The Best Revenge, Until The Day Is Done and Man Sized Wreath, and I'm Gonna DJ. Listening to this record is all the more fun when you are driving - Your head just goes up, down, up, down, up, down...

I must also mention that I bought their concert ticket! I am so looking forward to this concert in Chicago. My R.E.M. experience has started.

:)