Being an olds, I can still remember vividly the first flush of "that-is-fucking-genius" feeling that I heard on Murmur and the Chronic Town EP. REM over the last three decades - Geebus, can it be that long? - has consistently issued some of the best, sweetest, saddest, and occasionally hip-groovin' sounds out there. Which is absolutely amazing for a ROCK band of that age. I've seen the band three or four times live and they have consistently, again, provided great, energetic, punky poppy shows. (I have frens who allege that they have seen the band play tired, but I may just have been lucky.) The venues that REM plays are often these old, magnificent theaters and such, perfect for the kind of smarty-pants atmospherics that they virtually engineered. I've just been streaming it on line so far, but Accelerate seems to be at least as good as 2001's Reveal, which I honestly thought was very, very good; another good chapter in a long, rewarding book.
Posted on 04/04/2008
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My Trusted MOGs
I read in some interview years ago that REM once considered themselves punk. Imagine what the world would be like if they decided to go that way? Could you see Stipe singing like Darby Crash & breaking bottles on his head? I could.
My Trusted MOGs
Back in the antediluvian days of the early 80s, especially in blue-collar Ohio and similar backwaters, anything that didn't look and sound like REO or Molly Hatchet WAS punk. It was kinda cool, actually. We'd get a Gang of Four-type band mixing it up with cowpunk, "hardcore" opening for jangle-jangles, folky stuff, whatevs. Not to wax too nostolgic - probably the same percentage of music was crap then as it is always - but there was definitely a sense that there were no hard rules seperating the sounds. The sense of isolation and incubation was helped along by the fact that rednecks were always looking to beat the crap out of anyone who looked funny, which was pretty much all of us "punks." But now all the walls between genres seem to be back up, which I think is a shame. They'll come down again at some point. Anyhoo, Lez Zeppelin plays a local casino this weekend, so life is worth living!
My Trusted MOGs
There's nothing like girl on girl Stairway to Heaven.
My Trusted MOGs
Actually, that's the one big Zep song they did not do. Not sure why - but I'd bet they get a lot of demands for it.