Around the Sun
release date: Oct. 4, 2004
format: digital
[album rate: 2,5 / 5]
[2,71]
producer: Pat McCarthy and R.E.M
label: Warner Bros. - nationality: USA
Track highlights:
1.
"Leaving New York" (3,5 / 5) -
2.
"Electron Blue" -
5. "Final Straw" -
9.
"Aftermath"
13th studio album by R.E.M. For many 13 is anything but a lucky number [it also contains 13 tracks], and that fits perfectly on this band. 3 years after the promising
Reveal (2001) they do the exact apposite from displaying greatness once again. Instead, they release their worst album to date - in all their career.
In 2003 they had launched what many thought was a single from a forthcoming album,
"Bad Day", but that remained a single release, which isn't included here. Actually, that song appears on the 25th Anniversary Edition of
Lifes Rich Pageant as a demo, which reveals how old it is. When I saw the video and listened to that song, I was struck by disappointment, and may totally have given up on the band. In hindsight the song isn't that bad after all, and knowing its age, it's more like the blueprint for
"It's the End of the World..." from
Document (1987).
Around the Sun is an album absent of great songs, with several compositions below the mediocre, and more than anything it displays a band just releasing something new as just to state:
"hey, we're still around, although we really have nothing to say or show!". Apparently, guitarist Peter Buck agrees on this after their next album
when he said that for him Around the Sun
"... just wasn't really listenable, because it sounds like what it is, a bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can't stand it any more."
[
allmusic.com 2 / 5, NME, Rolling Stone 3 / 5 stars ]
~ ~ ~
"Leaving New York"
"It's quiet now
And what it brings
Is everything
Comes calling back
A brilliant night
I'm still awake
I looked ahead
I'm sure I saw you there
You don't need me
To tell you now
That nothing can compare
You might have laughed if I told you
You might have hidden a frown
You might have succeeded in changing me
I might have been turned around
It's easier to leave than to be left behind
Leaving was never my proud
Leaving New York, never easy
I saw the light fading out
Now life is sweet
And what it brings
I tried to take
But loneliness
It wears me out
It lies in wait
And I've lost still in my eyes
The shadow of necklace across your thigh
I might've lived my life in a dream, but I swear
This is real
Memory fuses and shatters like glass
Mercurial future, forget the past
It's you, it's what I feel.
You might have laughed if I told you (it's pulling me apart)
You might have hidden a frown (change)
You might have succeeded in changing me (it's pulling me apart)
I might have been turned around (change)
It's easier to leave than to be left behind (it's pulling me apart)
Leaving was never my proud (change)
Leaving New York, never easy (it's pulling me apart)
I saw the light fading out
You find it in your heart, it's pulling me apart
You find it in your heart, change...
I told you, forever
I love you, forever
I told you, I love you
I love you, forever
I told you, forever
You never, you never
You told me forever
You might have laughed if I told you
You might have hidden the frown (change)
You might have succeeded in changing me
I might have been turned around (change)
It's easier to leave than to be left behind (it's pulling me apart)
Leaving was never my proud (change)
Leaving New York never easy (it's pulling me apart)
I saw the life fading out (change)
Leaving New York, never easy (it's pulling me apart)
I saw the light fading out (change)
Leaving New York never easy (it's pulling me apart)
I saw the life fading out (change)"
~ ~ ~
