Speed It Up a Notch

I think freshman year of college is pretty much the same for everyone, nothing but a series of exchanges: brilliant ideas during class, drink recipes in the evening, and bodily fluids throughout the night. And so it was with me, at least with the ideas and drink recipes. Or maybe just the drink recipes. But more important than any of that was the exchanging of musical tastes and opinions. A decade before Napster, we found our new music the old fashioned way -- by roaming the halls rather than trolling the internet -- and it was good. It was definitely hit and miss, though. My roommate, for instance, counted The Outfield's "Play Deep" among his favorites, and there was a boy genius two floors up whose taste ran towards television soundtracks (think Muppet Show), but everywhere else, it seemed, music was the currency that mattered. Even though I had grown up suckling at the breast of KROQ, the most influential alternative rock station in the country at the time, I still found a good deal of new material in bands like the Replacements and Camper van Beethoven. The undisputed kings of the college scene, however, were R.E.M. Their album Document had dropped earlier that year, and it quickly became the soundtrack of our Friday and Saturday nights. To this day whenever I hear that disc's opening track, "Finest Worksong," I swear I can hear the clinking of quarters hiding behind Michael Stipe's lyrics. From there we'd work our way to perhaps the best drunken sing-along of all time, "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," and the inevitable competition to see who could keep up with the lyrics the longest. We'd usually get to "speed it up a notch" before the whole thing dissolved into mumbles and laughter until the chorus kicked in and brought us back together again. My love for R.E.M. stems from those nights. Not only was the music cool, it made you feel cool to like the music, if that makes sense. As you sung along you could be bouncing around and screaming "Leonard Bernstein!" at the top of your lungs one moment, then soulfully crooning along with "The One I Love" the next while cynically pointing out to anyone who would listen that it really isn't a love song at all. They were the quintessential college band. And then they grew up, and there were growing pains. Out of Time was a nice little album, but it was a little too shiny in some places, a little too happy in others. Automatic for the People also sounded good at first listen, but now it feels like something you'd hear at a Renaissance Pleasure Fair -- mandolins, zithers, and sitars, oh my! From there, it only got worse. The albums weren't necessarily bad, just forgettable. Don't worry, though. In case you haven't heard, the boys from Athens-Gee-Ay are back, and this time they brought their guitars. Their latest album, Accelerate, came out a few months ago, and it's probably their best disc in two decades. It's filled with catchy guitar riffs and some of Stipe's best lyrics in a while. It all begins with an incredibly un-R.E.M.-like guitar that kicks off the opening track, "Living Well Is the Best Revenge," then jumps to "Supernatural Superserious," probably the one true pop song on the album. With lyrical hooks like "you don't have to explain the humiliation of your teenage station" and "you realized your fantasies are all dressed up in travesties," this one's sure to get some radio play. The standard album closes with the quirky "I'm Gonna DJ," an apocalyptic tune about staging a party at the end of the world. (Equally quirky songs like "Red Head Walking" and the instrumental "Airliner" didn't make the cut, but they're nice B-sides that come with the extended version of the album.) My favorite cut, though, has to be "Hollow Man." This song tricks you into thinking that you've accidentally slipped Automatic back into the CD player, but quickly corrects you a few bars in as the power chords drop in and push the cheesy intro lyrics aside. The chorus is transcendent, and seems written to be sung by Michael Stipe and ten thousand of his closest friends: "Believe in me, believe in nothing. Corner me and make me something. I've become the hollow man, have I become the hollow man I see?" Trust me, it sings better than it reads. Altogether, the album is excellent. I'm not sure it will ever have the nostalgia of stale beer and hangovers like Document does for me, but I know I'll still be listening to it ten years from now.