Finally!

REM released a new album several weeks back; after asking several people (OK, two) if they were going to buy it for me for my birthday so that if they weren't I could go get it IMMEDIATELY....well, yeah, I followed typical Meg procedures and promptly didn't get around to buying it for another month.

But, I did finally order it from Amazon last week (along with Funplex, the new B-52s album, so it was quite the Athens-esque order), and they came in yesterday!

I really like this album. Granted, I'm pretty much an REM ho, so to speak; there's just not much over the years that they've done that I've NOT liked (and, yes, I still think Michael Stipe is hot in an anorexic, way-too-fragil, nutcase kinda way, even if he IS gay). But, yes, even given my prediliction to liking anything they do, I still really like this album.

Dick claims that REM is boring because everything they do sounds alike. Beyond disagreeing, I find it very improbable that the same three guys can play music together for 30 years and NOT re-use, re-cycle, reprise, whatever the basic themes they've built upon. And that's one of the things that I really like about Accelerate; I can hear shadows of Murmur, Fables of the Reconstruction, Document, et al in the harmonies and cadences.

Given that, though, this is it's own album. REM is getting God-awful old just like the rest of us; there's still passion, yes, but it's tempered. For example, on Automatic for the People there was a song, Ignoreland, which was basically a diatribe against the American politial system in the late 70's / early 80s. It was loud, it was angry, it was raucous, it was darn near impossible to comprehend if one wasn't Michael Stipe.

Well, Michael's still raging against politicians. But this time it's in the song Until The Day is Done:

The battle's been lost, the war is not won
an addled republic, a bitter refund.
the business first flat earthers
licking their wounds
the verdict is dire, the country's in ruins.

Providence blinked, facing the son,
and where are we left to carry on
until the day is done...

Uh, yeah. That's pretty straightforward, and rather than a 20-something self-rightous loud, raging song, it's in a very melancholy, adult (for lack of a better word) song. I think we must all be growing up.

And, yes, if there's any doubt of that, the FIRST place I hear this album was not from a download, not on the alternative station I listen to....

But on Fresh Air on NPR. Damn.

So, yeah, we're all getting older, but dang! I still love REM!