Album: Accelerate
Year: 2008
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File Under Apostles
One of my all time favorite critical one-liners is Rob Sheffield’s quip that Oasis’ Be Here Now was a concept album about long all the songs were. And so while I’m temped to joke that Accelerate was a concept album about how fast all of the songs were, it’s really the album where they finally got over Bill Berry leaving the band.
Having started out defining themselves as a rock ‘n’ roll band, a state of affairs under which you often live and die based upon your drummer, they spent the decade after Berry left kind of avoiding just rocking the fuck out. At least on the studio albums. To diminishing results. And so with drummer Bill Reiflin and second guitarist (and more) Scott McCaughey onboard as near-equals, they decided to rock the fuck out.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1761: R.E.M. – “Living Well is The Best Revenge”