If regular alternative is not too mainstream for you, rejoice, R.E.M is back to their recording studio, working on a new album.
This March, R.E.M managed to leave their past behind, in the culmination of their contract with Warner Brothers Records with the release of the album “Collapse Into Now”. R.E.M being R.E.M, the album was generally well received and generally topped charts. And R.E.M being R.E.M (with or without Bill Berry ) I have often wondered which way the band was headed. Well, prayers were answered from the unlikeliest of sources, Jane Pratt, founder of the eponymous women’s lifestyle website, xojane.com. To be fair I did find out that the Micheal Stipe and she had a thing going sometime in the distant past.
The lesson here is to never underestimate the power of showbiz love.
Meanwhile at Athens ( thats Athens, Georgia and not Athens, Greece) Stipe and Co. are rumored to be hard at work on their new album. Michael Stipe has announced on xojane.com that they are recording.
If you haven’t started holding your breath yet, may I offer now as the appropriate time for asphyxiation?
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Live from Austin, Radical Exalted Mind-blowingness
Some lingering qualms though, all of R.E.Ms post murmur successful albums were recorded with Warner Bros Records starting with Green in 1988, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992). Basically these guys have recorded all the songs that we know and love, and chronicled it’s rise into the mainstream appeal from a cult band. So fans are left wondering whether the band will sign into a new label, or self-release the album.
Still, all you alternative junkies out there have good cause to rejoice because even if it is bad, it’l still be R.E.M bad, which is much better that a modern okay. We still have Stipe’s sublimely nonsensical lyrics, Mike Mill’s melodic bass playing and Peter Buck’s chekovesque economical, poetic strings.
As always from us at the Score, expect to be blinded by the sheer brilliance of awesomeness. Watch this space.
