REM - leaving new york, 2004

"It’s tempting to say that R.E.M. lost their focus after Bill Berry quit the band in 1996 and they never made another great album, but it’s simply not true. They may have ceased to be a commercial force, but records like Accelerate, Reveal, Collapse Into Now and even Up are stellar albums even if they fail to reach the absurd highs of their earlier works. The only time the group really stumbled was on 2004’s Around the Sun. “The Outsiders,” featuring Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, aims to replicate their KRS-One collaboration from 1991’s Out of Time, but it feels forced. “Final Straw” is a noble, if boring, protest against the Iraq War. The rest of the album simply feels lazy. And if you don’t believe us, listen to the band. “[It] just wasn’t really listenable,” Peter Buck said in 2008, “because it sounds like what it is: a bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can’t stand it anymore.”

 Such a great song! In such a great album!