Around the Sun
R.E.M.
Remember that favourite uncle who used to keep you entertained as a kid? Then one day you met up again and you realised he wasn't half as cool as you thought he was. With their latest offering, Around The Sun, REM have become that uncle.
Listening to Michael Stipe's soothing rhetoric is rather like popping on a pair of your favourite slippers. But as the last track of this, their thirteenth album, fades out, you can't help feeling disappointed, not to mention depressed. Stipe has made no secret about his opposition to George Bush and the war in Iraq and Around The Sun reflects his sombre mood.
Getting away from it all is a recurring theme. New single "Leaving New York" finds REM at their blissful, jangly best as Stipe considers escaping his beloved city after seeing "the light fading out", while "High Speed Train" takes him to a place where there's "No war. No hate. No past."
Lyrically they can't be faulted, but the departure of drummer Bill Berry has hit the band hard over the last two albums. This is the man, after all, who wrote the melody to "Everybody Hurts". You won't find a "Losing My Religion" or a "Orange Crush" here. But there a few great songs, enough to pour scorn on suggestions the band are a spent force.
The excellent "Wanderlust", one of the few upbeat numbers, sees REM do Britpop - albeit 10 years too late - and once you've heard "Electron Blue", the chorus will be spinnng around your head for days. There's even another dabble in hip hop, 13 years after KRS-One's appearance on "Radio Song", as Q-Tip collaborates on "The Outsiders", reminding you just how good A Tribe Called Quest were.
The trouble is, there's too many songs that float around without actually going anywhere. By the time you've thought about what you're going to have for dinner, three tracks have flown by without you realising. If Peter Buck listened to this on an aeroplane, he'd drift off to sleep.
Reviewed by Chris Charles
sure there are a few undeniable duds, but the good songs are really good imo.
Underrated... I don't understand all the hate
It's a shame the production/arrangements are so flat, cause there's a lot to recommend this one songswise. I heard it was recorded in breaks from touring the Best Of. Maybe if they'd had more time to work the songs out as a band it would have come to life a bit more, like some songs did when they finally got around to playing them live on the ATS tour
underrated
still don't understand why a lot of rem fans don't love this album... for me it is quietly beautiful, powerful & melancholic. highly nostalgic also. i find myself listening to a lot of the songs on repeat, especially the last 3 tracks (so beautiful). this album is relevant to *me*, because it puts me in this calm and still mood that a lot of music isn't capable of doing. not because it's boring, but because it makes me feel better about life somehow. therefore around the sun is not a dull album, it is a healing album.
Easily their weakest...there's just nothing here that is remotely compelling, which is very unusual for them (I always find at least one song on all their albums that I find brilliant and inspired). Everything is mid-tempo and produced to the extreme...the most narrow palette of all their albums too (most of these songs could easily fit into the "adult contemporary" genre, which is tired in and of itself). 24 years after their start, this is the first time it can honestly be said that they sound irrelevant.
Really enjoying this so far. I love it when an album pleasantly surprises me.
Dull melodies and flat production are accessible now? Okay.
Strangely enough, it's one of my most listened REM album. Probably because it is slightly more accessible than most of their output. I really have a soft spot for this album.
Listening to this for the first time in years, and it really is as near-unlistenable as I remembered it to be. I like The Outsiders, Aftermath and Final Straw, but the rest is seriously dull.
I don't think this album is either creative or uncompromising. If anything, their breakup will probably make people look back on this and see just how thoroughly uninspired it really is. Around the Sun deserves its runt of the litter status.
It is as creative and uncompromising as a pop album can be, no wonder it's less successful commercially and widely criticized by mainstream media:)
Leaving New York is Around the Sun's I'll Take the Rain. I mean, its ausence would make the album a "lesser bad" record.
Melodic? Sure. But if this is melodic, then what are the twelve albums before it? Weakest? Easily. Around the Sun has its moments, as "Leaving New York" is far and away the best thing here, but overall it's simply lacking in just about everything that made their previous albums so memorable and listenable. R.E.M. has one of the strongest discographies of any band ever. Unfortunately, though Around the Sun is far from the debacle it's often exaggerated to be, it can't help but be compared to what came before it and it loses out every single time. I understand this album has its defenders, but it's difficult to imagine this ever taking a place among R.E.M.'s most essential releases.
Melodic? Very. Weakest? Hardly.
Mellow, yes, but melodic? Hmm.
This album is much maligned but I prefer it to most of their recent output. It's mellow and melodic.
But it's still by far the weakest album R.E.M. has ever put out.
As mentioned below, this is a slow album, and not nearly anywhere near their best, but it's also not anywhere near as bad as it is made out to be.
Best songs are: Final Straw, Worst Joke Ever, High Speed Train, Make it All Okay, Aftermath, Boy in the Well, in that order. That's seven songs (out of thirteen) that make this a great album (and I'm not mentioning the obvious hit which is Leaving New York). The Album ranks third among my R.E.M. favourites: * New Adventures in Hi-Fi * Accelerate * Around the Sun This will change soon with the release of Collapse into Now which is set to become second or first in this list.
Raventhird is one of those "I'm so cool I don't even know the names of those pop songs" people. And this is a really great record. Not their best. but still brilliant :D
don't know why, but for me this album is the saddest of them...
there's Electron Blue. and then there's all the rest.
This album is a very ethereal experience, as if R.E.M. were on the verge of coining a new genre of Alternative Rock music; then they went with an approach which was similar to their older work with Accelerate. I do hope we hear some of this R.E.M. again some day, most of R.E.M. is delightfully depressing, but this is just depressingly depressing and it was quite powerful.
I dont know why but I fucking love this album!
This is a bit on the "dark side", and Boy In the Well is actually one of their best song ever.
of course an album like Out of time would be better... of course :)
This is a good album. Certainly better than Reveal and Up.
It is indeed deserving of more praise than it receives, but Around the Sun often sounds tired and lethargic. R.E.M. has never recorded and outright weak album, but Around the Sun is closer to that mark than any of their other releases. A couple of songs are outstanding, with that said, but the ill-conceived Q-Tip guest is unforgivable, blatantly plagiarizing their own past when KRS-ONE appeared on Out of Time. The album suffers from a paucity of ideas and soggy pacing.
i like this album because it remembers me some very very srtong feelings... really. I understand people who says it's a boring album...
I love the three first songs!
It's not as bad as they say, I enjoy quite a few songs off this album.
Disappointingly weak material, most of it bores me to death. I now play Leaving New York (which is amazing) and pretty much nothing else off this album.
Raventhird, just how dumb are you? You also have no clue how to use last.fm. It's pretty fucking clear what the song titles are if you look above. And no one cares what you like to do in your free time.
It's not that bad... A few of the tracks are dragged so far down by poor production, and the lyrics aren't the band's best, but there are some really good songs on here, and they all sound great live.
This one really, really sucks. Most tracks are among the most boring music I've heard in a long time (I don't watch TV or listen to the radio, so don't give me titles of lame Pop-tracks, I have no clue about em).
R.E.M.'s weakest album, but not nearly the disaster made out to be. It's just a bit sleepier than their others and takes several spins before the tracks take shape. "Leaving New York" is fantastic.
finally bought this album :D it's my second favourite of theirs (after Automatic). I love most songs on it and think that Wanderlust should have ben not the fourth, but the first single! Leaving New York is good but there are better tracks here such as numbers 5, 7, 8 & 12. The only song I'm skeptical about is The Worst Joke Ever. And I prefer the alternate version of The Outsiders from the Wanderlust single (the one with Stipe's rap :D)
It's a solid album, certainly stronger than the likes of Reveal. Very uneven, but there are plenty of standout tracks - Leaving New York, Wanderlust and Around The Sun are gems.
this album totally sounds phoned in
worst r.e.m. album for sure. I can only save make it all okay-leaving new york and the ascent of man
Ugh. Only one of the songs is truly awful (Aftermath) while some are brilliant (Leaving New York) but it just doesn't work as an album for me. I think it's mainly in the production - I assosciate its sound with feeling sick. Tracks would be good crossed over two albums, with the same amount of energetic tracks. I see why Buck dislikes this one.
although this isn't my favorite, there are still some good tracks on here (electron blue, leaving ny, ascent of man, boy in the well, i wanted to be wrong, final straw). But i hate the tags on here. Album version?
no bad album. but still probably the worst R.E.M. album tu date by a considerable distance. it just doesn't have that specific R.E.M. feel...
Simply cannot get enough of Electron Blue...
The first three songs and Boy in the Well are good...
for sure no disappointment. brilliantly sounding record. perfect mix between up and reveal. don't understand the bad critics. just very good music after all those years.
Yeah, it's not a bad album, it's just not quite up to their high standard. About half of the songs are perfectly good I'd say. On the whole I like it better than Green, Fables of the Reconstruction and maybe Up.
Definitely not the best, still, it's R.E.M., it isn't bad. Favourite song would be The Outsiders.
imho their worst work, waiting for next album...