Accelerate (Remastered) R.E.M.

• 1Living Well Is The Best Revenge03:11
• 2Man-Sized Wreath02:33
• 3Supernatural Superserious03:24
• 4Hollow Man02:39
• 5Houston02:05
• 6Accelerate03:34
• 7Until The Day Is Done04:09
• 8Mr. Richards03:46
• 9Sing For The Submarine04:51
• 10Horse To Water02:18
• 11I'm Gonna DJ02:08
• Total Runtime34:38

Info for Accelerate (Remastered)

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 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.

'5 1/2 Stars! They haven't made an album this consistent since Automatic For The People and haven't redlined so engagingly since Life's Rich Pageant.' (Spin)

'Buck's return to electric prominence is both striking and massively welcome.' (Uncut)

One of Guardian's 10 essential albums. '...it's a pleasure to have them back on form.' (Guardian)

„Welcome to REM's 'new direction', folks. It's the old one, thank goodness! Eleven years after Bill Berry's departure from the drum stool it's finally ok for the band to admit that things haven't been too rosy on the communications front. The decision to soldier on was, they say, brave but maybe misguided, especially when it led to the stylistic dilettantism of albums like Up or the frankly moribund Around The Sun. But those who thought that the hiring of Jacknife Lee as producer (Bloc Party, Editors) might lead to another radical re-think will be disappointed. For what REM have done (in a mere nine days) is return to their indie roots and made a fast 'n' dirty album that thrills by its very speed. An apt title, indeed!

The opening chords of opener, Living Well Is The Best Revenge lets you know. Back are the wailing backing vocals of Mike Mills, the chiming D chords and drones of Peter Buck and some of the most impassioned singing that Stipe has laid down in eons. In interviews the band revealed that they'd slashed anything that wasn't instantly appealing. The results are a spartan 35-minute romp through the things that made us love them way back in the mid-80s. Viz: the punk thrash of hilarious closer, I'm Gonna DJ, which comes on like a cousin to End Of The World As We Know It. In fact the only downside of Accelerate is the album's tendency to recall too many of the band's best earlier moments. The folk waltz of Houston could come from their classic Out Of Time mid-period. Man-Sized Wreath could be from Green, such is the infectiousness of its chorus. The title track is just classic REM in any era. Yet when you get to the middle of Sing For the Submarine you realise that 20 years ago they couldn't have taken a song and lifted it so monumentally by sheer force of dynamics. So there's still progress of sorts.

Stipe's lyrics are as politically sharp as ever, with the aforementioned Houston's lyrics dealing with Hurricane Katrina (''if the storm doesn't kill me the government will'') but so often the whoops and hollers mean far more than the more jaded worldview. For, this late in the day, REM have begun to act like a band again. We should be thankful, and not a little amazed…“ (Chris Jones, BBC)

Peter Buck, guitars
Mike Mills, bass, background vocals
Michael Stipe, vocals

Recorded 2007 at Armoury Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Grouse Lodge Studios, County Westmeath, Ireland; and Seney-Stonewall Chapel, Athens, Georgia, United States; additional recording in Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Ireland and Mike Mills' home in Athens, Georgia
Produced by Jacknife Lee, R.E.M.

Digitally remastered

R.E.M.
were an alternative rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, United States in 1980. The band originally consisted of Michael Stipe (vocals), Peter Buck (guitar, mandolin), Mike Mills (bass, keyboards, vocals) and Bill Berry (drums). Berry retired from the band in October 1997 after having suffered a brain aneurysm in 1995.

R.E.M. released its first single, 'Radio Free Europe', in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. The single was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years through subsequent releases, constant touring, and the support of college radio. Following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit in 1987 with the single 'The One I Love'. The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.

By the early 1990s, when alternative rock began to experience broad mainstream success, R.E.M. was viewed as a pioneer of the genre and released its two most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), which veered from the band's established sound. R.E.M.'s 1994 release, Monster, was a return to a more rock-oriented sound. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract in history. The following year, Bill Berry left the band, while Buck, Mills, and Stipe continued the group as a three-piece. Through some changes in musical style, the band continued its career into the next decade with mixed critical and commercial success. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a 'working rehearsal'. R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from their 2005 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it 'one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made.'

In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and they began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.

On September 21, 2011, the band announced via its website that it was 'calling it a day as a band'. Stipe said that he hoped their fans realized it 'wasn't an easy decision': 'All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way.' Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The band members will finish their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, scheduled for release in November 2011. The album will be the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions.

On 21 September 2011, after over 30 years together, R.E.M. announced that they had split up. (Source: artists.letssingit.com)

This album contains no booklet.