For most people of college age, it seems that R.E.M., who plays at the FleetCenter tonight, has been around forever. Not necessarily in any mind-blowing, legendary sort of way, but just that they've always been there. Their latest album, "Around The Sun," reminds us that yes, they're still here and yes, they're still too humble and thoughtful to fall into the category of mind-blowing.
Just to be on the factual side, R.E.M. actually has been around forever. Their debut was 1982's "Chronic Town" EP and they were right there in the alternative explosion of the '90s with what is probably their best album to date, "Automatic For The People" (1992).
They were brilliant at producing rock songs that were also soft melodies and shifting soundscapes, like "Nightswimming" and "Man on the Moon." While difficult to admit, "Everybody Hurts" must have helped a great number of us through many a lonesome, teen-angsty adolescent night.
Thankfully, with "Around The Sun," they've gone back to the R.E.M. of the early '90s, with moody and mellow folk rock songs that are readily accessible, although they fail to be particularly remarkable, either lyrically or musically.
Like any long-standing rock band worth their salt, R.E.M. went through their esoteric "experimental" phases (witness 1998's "Up"). It was as though they tried to distance themselves from the popular grunge-rock of the time by establishing their music as complicated art-rock.
But in "Around the Sun," the band is taking the more direct route again. There is nothing to confuse or distance the listener here. "Make It All Okay" is quite openly a post-breakup song, as lead singer Michael Stipe sings: "If you offered me the heavens/I would have to turn away" over pleasant piano chords and peaceful strumming.
"I Wanted To Be Wrong" is another feel-good song, complete with sighing "oohs" in the background. It's nothing to draw a tear - it's no "Everybody Hurts" - but, if played at a concert, it still might induce you to hold up a lighter while swaying back and forth.
A number of the tracks fall into a rut of painful mediocrity, like "Aftermath" and "The Ascent of Man." (Stipe repeatedly singing "yeah" with much anguish in the background doesn't really help). These songs are too harmonious, too neat.
Stipe has been quoted as saying that "even the most depressing R.E.M. song is going to have a glimmer of hope." Replace "depressing" with "dull" and it could be applicable to this album. There is too much pleasant banality and not enough hard-hitting emotion.
Perhaps compromise has taken its toll on the three remaining members - guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and lead singer Stipe. R.E.M were forced to re-sign with Warner Bros. in 1996 as part of a corporate mega-deal that they openly disdained.
After the subsequent departure of drummer Bill Berry in 1997, they vowed they would not continue without the original four members, but contract obligations forced them to anyway. They have not yet fully recovered, it seems, especially after the past few years of constant arena-touring.
The album does have several moments of inspired instrumental creativity. "Final Straw" boasts some fine acoustic work by Buck, amounting to one of the more powerful tracks, despite the curious absence of a chorus.
"The Outsiders" gives listeners some healthy variety with a cool drum beat that comes to a halt as it moves into almost trip-hop mode with some rapping by Q-tip, who righteously repeats the phrase "I am not afraid."
"Boy on the Wall" refreshingly drops the feel-good theme for that of disenchantment, and to good effect. In this musically and lyrically more intense piece, Stipe sings: "You wanted me to be someone that I could never be / This town is going wrong."
So yes, there are glimmers of hope for R.E.M. The album could stand to pull at our heartstrings a little more, or give us a little more to "rock out" to, but it is a meandering collection of songs that might satisfy on a ponderous, rainy afternoon.
