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Review
"I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog," said Michael Stipe when drummer Bill Berry quit R.E.M. in 1997. True, but a three-legged dog never triumphed at Crufts or the racetrack. Even so, the R.E.M. that recorded 1998’s Up (experimental, frequently beautiful), 2001’s Reveal (lush, frequently beautiful) only started listing badly on 2004’s Around the Sun, where a mystifyingly insipid production and sluggish mood got in the way of frequent bouts of beauty. Stung into action, they tore through 2008’s frequently thrilling Accelerate – but can an R.E.M. album ever feel like an event again?
The clock is indeed ticking for the band, this being their 15th album on their 30th anniversary. But Radiohead should be so lucky at this stage. Even if a lyric sheet on a R.E.M. album doesn’t feel right, Stipe’s words are alluring, enigmatic and provocative, free of rhetoric (the Hurricane Katrina aftermath of Oh My Heart notwithstanding). Unlike Accelerate, Collapse into Now is also free of a planned response to a predecessor. It’s as varied and deep as previous R.E.M. classics. It’s not epochal like Automatic for the People, but it can’t be. These are different times.
On that basis, the album kicks off like Accelerate Part Two, with Discoverer and All the Best incorporating that sinewy and keening R.E.M. rock thrust of old. There are also passages that are, yes, frequently beautiful. All five ballads get the tense, urgent delivery they deserve, and at best, Walk It Back show as they get older, R.E.M. are even better at gravitas, Oh My Heart’s accordion/mandolin undertow is an immediate earworm and Every Day Is Yours to Win is the kind of wistful lullaby often reserved for an album finale.
The closing track here is more in line with You from 1994’s Monster: Peter Buck’s guitar is drenched in fuzz, Country Feedback-style; Stipe’s spoken word diatribe and Patti Smith’s solemn incantation equally fire; and a surprise coda returns to Discoverer’s exuberant chorus. Before then, though, we’ve heard the first (non-session) guest men on an R.E.M. album. Every Day… features Eddie Vedder and The Hidden Cameras’ Joel Gibb on valiant backing vocals and Patti’s faithful guitar foil Lenny Kaye transforms Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter into something that’s virtually hard rock (Peaches adds lascivious vocal back-ups). Fun, maybe, but also overblown. Consider it the album’s only misjudgement. Fortunately, That Someone Is You follows in a more dutifully golden, Byrds-ian rush.
Buck reckons no R.E.M. in 20 years has 12 songs as good as this. 1996’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi may have something to say about that, but Collapse into Now genuinely feels like their first post-Bill Berry album to resemble a four-legged dog. And that, folks, is an event.
--Martin Aston
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Product Description
CD
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful
By Bungliemutt
Format:Audio CD
Now that the dust has settled a little from the release of this album, it may be possible to take a slightly more dispassionate view of it. First the facts; clearly it does sound like other R.E.M. albums. It is an R.E.M album after all, and I don't recall The Beatles ever making much of an effort to sound like The Rolling Stones. But aimless re-tread it most definitely is not. A better and more cohesive set of songs than Accelerate it most certainly is. We amateur pundits could argue until the cows come home over which former R.E.M. album(s) Collapse Into Now most closely resembles, but the argument is fruitless (Out Of Time, for my money, if you're interested). What is important is that this is a good R.E.M. album. In fact, a very good one.
'Discoverer', 'Uberlin', 'Oh My Heart' and 'Mine Smell Like Honey' are cracking R.E.M. songs, bearing all the best hallmarks of the band; melody, harmony and jangling guitars aplenty. In 'It Happened Today', lightweight lyrics aside (ironic, who knows?) R.E.M. have delivered the best soaring harmonies and chorus since the sublime 'Texarcana'. 'Blue', with its Patti Smith vocals and feedback guitar, is reminiscent of the wondrous 'Country Feedback'. But all of them are strong songs in their own right; their similarity to past glories being just that, glorious. No one ever likened anything on Around The Sun to R.E.M.'s previous work, and with good reason (although that album is nowhere near as execrable as popular opinion would have us believe).
So there you have it. Two decent albums in a row. The band sounds like R.E.M. again. Thank heavens for that; they have never really sounded like anyone else. They have rediscovered decent songwriting, soaring harmonies and loud jangling guitars, and they sound like they had a great time doing it. How many other American bands from the 80s are knocking out material of this quality after 25 years? Buy it, and enjoy.
'Discoverer', 'Uberlin', 'Oh My Heart' and 'Mine Smell Like Honey' are cracking R.E.M. songs, bearing all the best hallmarks of the band; melody, harmony and jangling guitars aplenty. In 'It Happened Today', lightweight lyrics aside (ironic, who knows?) R.E.M. have delivered the best soaring harmonies and chorus since the sublime 'Texarcana'. 'Blue', with its Patti Smith vocals and feedback guitar, is reminiscent of the wondrous 'Country Feedback'. But all of them are strong songs in their own right; their similarity to past glories being just that, glorious. No one ever likened anything on Around The Sun to R.E.M.'s previous work, and with good reason (although that album is nowhere near as execrable as popular opinion would have us believe).
So there you have it. Two decent albums in a row. The band sounds like R.E.M. again. Thank heavens for that; they have never really sounded like anyone else. They have rediscovered decent songwriting, soaring harmonies and loud jangling guitars, and they sound like they had a great time doing it. How many other American bands from the 80s are knocking out material of this quality after 25 years? Buy it, and enjoy.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Any which way you look at it a new R.E.M. album is always an
event of sufficient importance that we have to sit up and listen!
With a band who have been with us in the listening world for
such a long time it's hard to resist the urge to look backwards
over our shoulder and compare each album with what has gone before.
There's a big, brave body of work stretching out behind them like
a wild wave on which we have surfed with them across three decades!
'Collapse Into Now' is a fine album (some decidedly dodgy guitar
tunings nothwithstanding here and there!) A very fine album in fact.
There are some good songs here but there are also a handful of great
ones. I've always been able to take or leave the band's more ribald
electric offerings and although the opening two tracks 'Discover'
and 'All The Best' certainly demonstrate that there is still life
after middle-age they didn't exactly blow my socks off into the ether.
When we get round to the gloriously rich simplicity of 'Oh My Heart'
and the joyous folksy melancholy of 'It Happened Today', however, we
feel the blood begin to flow more quickly through our veins!
(In Mr Stipes hands even a phrase as potentially lame as "Hip Hip
Hooray" sounds as though it might have a deeper philosophical meaning!)
'Every Day Is Yours To Win' is simply beautiful too. An R.E.M. anthem
to stand shoulder to shoulder with their most memorable inventions.
The final track 'Blue' is a big song. A veritable monolithic stone
ziggurat of a song! World-weary and weather-beaten; cloak trailing
behind it in the mud and grime of another failing century, it has
a rough and ready majesty strong enough to make the Earth tremble
beneath our feet. Pagan Poet Queen Patti Smith is here to share
the moment; her doleful intonation of the words lending an exquisite
gravitas to this truly stunning transcendental musical edifice. Sublime.
There is more to love than to leave on 'Collapse Into Now'.
Messrs Stipe, Buck and Mills have delivered a true classic.
Essential.
event of sufficient importance that we have to sit up and listen!
With a band who have been with us in the listening world for
such a long time it's hard to resist the urge to look backwards
over our shoulder and compare each album with what has gone before.
There's a big, brave body of work stretching out behind them like
a wild wave on which we have surfed with them across three decades!
'Collapse Into Now' is a fine album (some decidedly dodgy guitar
tunings nothwithstanding here and there!) A very fine album in fact.
There are some good songs here but there are also a handful of great
ones. I've always been able to take or leave the band's more ribald
electric offerings and although the opening two tracks 'Discover'
and 'All The Best' certainly demonstrate that there is still life
after middle-age they didn't exactly blow my socks off into the ether.
When we get round to the gloriously rich simplicity of 'Oh My Heart'
and the joyous folksy melancholy of 'It Happened Today', however, we
feel the blood begin to flow more quickly through our veins!
(In Mr Stipes hands even a phrase as potentially lame as "Hip Hip
Hooray" sounds as though it might have a deeper philosophical meaning!)
'Every Day Is Yours To Win' is simply beautiful too. An R.E.M. anthem
to stand shoulder to shoulder with their most memorable inventions.
The final track 'Blue' is a big song. A veritable monolithic stone
ziggurat of a song! World-weary and weather-beaten; cloak trailing
behind it in the mud and grime of another failing century, it has
a rough and ready majesty strong enough to make the Earth tremble
beneath our feet. Pagan Poet Queen Patti Smith is here to share
the moment; her doleful intonation of the words lending an exquisite
gravitas to this truly stunning transcendental musical edifice. Sublime.
There is more to love than to leave on 'Collapse Into Now'.
Messrs Stipe, Buck and Mills have delivered a true classic.
Essential.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Collapse Into Now is a very good album. On its own merit. I have read a lot of reviews which obsess about the disappointing quality of REM albums post Automatic. The run from Murmur to Automatic is indeed wonderful (although I think Out of Time, despite containing some of their best songs, is overrated) but I can say honestly that I also love Up and Reveal. Monster has some fantastic moments, New Adventures was a great collection of songs that didn't cohere as an album. Around the Sun remains the only blemish on their career to date and I'm not even going to try to justify it. Accelerate was a welcome blast of fresh air (much like Pearl Jam's Backspacer) but its nice to hear REM returning to a more relaxed style on Collapse. Discoverer is a promising opener and the album is consistently rewarding throughout. Uberlin is a particular highlight - a beautiful song that gives me goosebumps - remember how REM have an uncanny, inexplicable way of doing that at times? So, no its not Murmur or Automatic and it all sounds just how you imagine REM should sound - but you know what? I keep listening to it. It finishes and I hit play again. And again. And I love Stipe's voice. And the music just works! And God bless Mike Mills with those harmonies! And these are great songs! Enjoy them. And long live REM!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Goodbye and Thank You R.E.M.
Collapse Into Now was released in March 2011 and like all the R.E.M albums since 1994 I purchased on the day of release. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mr. D. J. Levesley
4.0 out of 5 stars
rem collapse into now
quite a good album,the voice of michael stipe again is brill! played the album a few times and it grows on you.
Published 10 months ago by gerry h
4.0 out of 5 stars
As epitaphs go ...
How I wish I'd written this text before September 2011, because then I could've reviewed 'Collapse Into Now' as just another R.E.M. record and not their epitaph. Read more
Published 13 months ago by S. C. JONES
5.0 out of 5 stars
No their name is REM not five star lol
So good as usual so very unusual for a band to have every single album so spot on great ,please continue to keep the high standards
Published 17 months ago by baz
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Last Great Blast from REM?
Another great album from REM could this really be their last? Or maybe the last for a while? Who knows but grab it while it's fresh and enjoy!
Published 18 months ago by Small Mercies
3.0 out of 5 stars
A pleasing Outro
Many question whether or not this is a return-to-form for REM yet also declared that upon the release of Accelerate. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Gigoer
4.0 out of 5 stars
A return of sorts to what made them who they are, but only a few new...
R.E.M. has my total respect. I have been an off-and-on fan for over 25 years. My first experience was the wonderful "Green," and as I was living in seattle at the time, it will... Read more
Published 20 months ago by John J. Martinez
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fantastic Swan Song
So REM are no more, and this is what they have left us with. It's a lovely album, whilst not top drawer (New Adventures, Pageant, Murmur, AFTP) it is still one of the best records... Read more
Published 20 months ago by robotfish
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very good CD
In the last years, new REM albums seemed more and more insignificant. With "Collapse into now", they show that they still got it. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Marta Hernandez
4.0 out of 5 stars
I know, it's only Rock'n Roll, but I like it!
Fifteen years after "New Adventures In Hi-Fi" and after 4 albums, each of them supposed to be "the best of our career" and each of them becoming a new deception for me, yes, even... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Juanma P
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