Reading so many fawning reviews of R.E.M.'s Accelerate, due in stores tomorrow, made me question my own tepid reaction to the disc. Am I missing something? Am I expecting too much? Am I too critical? I'll admit that despite expressing my own ambivalence with the album, I've played little other than it and that great new Big Dipper anthology in the past two weeks. Of course, that's as much a factor of wanting even mediocre music from a favorite band when the alternative is actually having the time to seek out something new and rewarding (speaking only of the R.E.M. here; the Big Dipper is giddily transcendent. More on that next week).

The naysayers are lining up, however, giving some support to my thoughts about the ultimately disappointment the disc cultivates. Most telling is this post from (the other) Bill Wyman. Intrigued by the familiarity of the plaudits being heaped on Accelerate, he takes a tour through Rolling Stone's archives. All of those disappointing albums over the past decade, you know, the ones against which this is called a return to form? I won't steal Wyman's thunder, but suffice to say, as he does, "At this point, the implication is clear: As far as Rolling Stone is concerned, the band’s best work is ahead of it."

Idolator also weighs in, highlighting some of the purple prose being inked over the disc at various outlets. These songs, from a band "that has [its] fighting spirit back," a band whose "career isn't over yet," "cast an inescapable shadow."

All that said, I plan to attempt to hear it with fresh ears when I actually go to a store and pay cash for a compact disc (call me old fashioned) and slip the real thing into the player for the first time.

Labels: criticism, music, R.E.M.