Music : Accelerate

Rating: - 4 star album, 1/4 star audio production
This is a good album, no arguments, but it sounds like it was recorded on a commodore 64. This is the worst audio I've heard in a long while, and there is absolutely no excuse for it. I can't understand how they can release something that sounds so bad. I really can't listen to it on the main system. Ruins an otherwise great album.

---

Rating: - REM
I bought this CD for my Husband. It was packaged well and came within a few days. My Husband was very happy with the CD.

---

Rating: - REM never lost it...
I own every REM album, including this one. Most reviews that I have read have been good but I'm frustrated by the implication that REM is back. I think they never lost it. Reveal was a real dud for me, and Monster is also at the bottom end of their catalog for me. However, I actually dug Around the Sun so I didn't see Accelerate as some massive comeback or step up.

That said, Accelerate is a very good REM album. Hey, there's only so much they can keep coming up with after all these years, but the vigor on this album is apparent. The songs are frequently political, and biting. The high speed of the album is actually a treat, and as a listener it feels like running through images and thoughts at a great pace. Supposedly, the production on this was pretty quick, too, and there are a couple of songs near the end that are lacking, such as Sing for the Submarine which could have used some judicial editing, and Horse to Water which is basically filler.

The rest, however, is killer, and the album really shines in the middle with Accelerate, Until the Day is Done, and Mr. Richards.

---

Rating: - Life's Rich Pageant for a new generation... & for those of us who've hung in there!
This is REM at its best in 10 years! REM has (FINALLY!!!) returned to its roots of jangly Buck guitar and divine Stipe/Mills harmonies. From the very first track this album is channeling LRP and for once in a decade they have an album that can be listened to from beginning to end (think OOT & AFTP). One where the tracks flow into each other and don't beg the use of the 'next track' function on your cd/dvd player. While I have plenty of favorite moments over the past three albums none of them gave me the feeling of oneness but more that of individual experiments compiled together. This is the album REM fans have been waiting for!!! An absolute masterpiece!

---

Rating: - The youth is back
With accelerate REM brings back the same energy into their music as "Automatic for people" and "New Adventures in Hi-Fi". However, Stipe no longer has the weird hairstyle and no longer wears a white sports jacket into a concert.

I have grown up with REM's music, their sound keeping me company - ever evolving, adventurous and experimental. So I loved "Automatic for people" when I first heard it and "Up" - on the other side of the scale as far as energy is concerned - which I absolutely loved more than anything else they have produced.

It seems that REM has come full circle; the evolution in their music is complete and its time to go back to the tried and tested sound which made them famous in the first place. "I lap it up, I lap it up anyway" but I wish there was more left.