R.E.M. - Accelerate [CD/DVD]

For years, R.e.m. promised that their nextOut Of Time and the gloomy folk of Automatic For The People, but in the years after Bill Berry's 1997 departure, the desire of longtime fans for the group to rock again was merely a code word for the wish that R.e.m. would sound like a band again. Apart from a few fleeting moments -- "The Great Beyond," their "Man in the Moon" re-write for the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic, Man In The Moon; "Bad Day," a mid-'80s outtake revived for a greatest-hits album -- R.e.m. not only didn't sound like a band, but they seemed at odds with themselves and their very strengths, culminating in the amorphous, mummified Around The Sun, a record so polished and overworked it didn't sound a bit like R.e.m., not even like the art-pop outfit the band turned into after Berry's retirement. Read More