Dude, Sing for the Submarine is one of the better tracks on the album. Yeah, it's the longest and the most swooning, but brevity does not equal quality (as the press releases and M. Stipe are trying to lead you to believe). Stretch any of the other tracks out this long and they won't work. SFTS does though.

REM's made a decent album this go-round. However, I do have to question the Rolling Stone editor who says, "Accelerate is the first studio album by that post-Berry stage band, and it is one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made..." (http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/19451585/review/19517097/accelerate).

One of the best REM records... ORLY? Come on, now. Has this guy heard 'Life's Rich Pageant' or 'Fables' or 'Document' or 'Green' or 'Automatic' or 'Reckoning' or 'Monster' or 'Murmur' or any of the rest of their releases? I mean seriously, ''Accelerate' does not hold a candle to most of the REM catalog. Sure, the past 10 years have been suspect, but go back further than that and tell me that 'Accelerate' is better than ANY of the pre-Reveal albums. And let's all please keep in mind that 'Reveal' and 'Around My Butt' have set the REM bar very low. Or do I mean extremely low? Either way, it's lower than it should be.

I'm moving the discussion about REM off of Toddolson's list and onto the accelerate page:

here are all the unofficial videos: http://www.blogotheque.net/R-E-M

thanks for the link, steve.

I agree with most of your assessment. Except I'd put Houston at 0 and Sing for the Submarine at 1.

OK - now I can comment.

(out of 4 stars)
Living Well is The Best Revenge - 2.5
Man Sized Wreath - 2.5
Supernatural Superserious - 3 (didn't like it at first - now it's grown on me)
Hollow Man - 2.5 (although close to 3)
Houston - 2
Accelerate - 2
Until the Day is Done - OLD SKOOL! 3.5! Best song on the album
Mr. Richards - ANOTHER OLD SKOOL! Sounds like Green - 3
Sing for the Submarine - 2
Horse to Water - really like this tune - 3
I'm Gonna DJ - sucks - 1

That's funny because after some more listens - I'm now liking it. There are klunkers in there for sure but some of the tunes stand up to older stuff. Don't have it in front of me but when I get to the song list tomorrow - I'll throw out some of my favorites.

And after a few more listens, I've come to the conclusion that Accelerate isn't even worth the $10 that Amazon is offering on special. It clocks in at 35 minutes but feels much longer. You know what? Because it's a goddamn drag. There are only a handful of songs that are any good. (How sad is it that "good" has been ratcheted down when talking about REM?) I guess I should have stopped buying REM albums after Up.

Remember when REM talked about stuff but it wasn't completely obvious? You know, like hidden lyrical depth? Well no more of that. Hey Stipe, we need another song about Katrina like we do another tribute to Princess Diana.

I'm starting to agree with you on Accelerate. After a full day of listening to it on constant rotation, I'm starting to actually like the new album. The problem is Michael Stipe seems to have falling in love with the word "WOW!" and I think I keep catching people going "wooooo" in the background of songs. I'm hoping it's just me imagining it. There should never be any "woooo" in a song.

I was also thinking that I'm Gonna DJ with a different arrangement could be better? not as awful? tolerable? It's just we don't need Stipe to be all excited about DJ AT THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully they'll release an "enhanced" version of this album that will NOT include "Supernatural Superserious" and "I'm Gonna DJ". Other than that, Accelerate is actuallly not that bad.