The analytical observer will go through several stages of diagnosis when deciding how they truly feel about something.
And even with the consideration in mind that this is a highly indefinable procedure, there’s a good chance that when examining R.E.M.’s newest release Collapse Into Now, that process will go a little something like this.
Stage one will bring the listener in to a wonderful state of nostalgia accentuating the sheer size still present in the band’s sonic output. The stadium sound in the opening track “Discoverer” gives a screaming first impression that even 30 years after their inception, the alternative rock pioneers still know how to bring the house down.
The odd cadence often heard with singer Michael Stipe’s lyrics accompanies their signature ringing guitar on “All The Best,” and you think you had died and gone to 1992. But by the time these tracks are being digested, the listener will be found quickly barring down on the approaching second stage.
Stage two is marked by a sudden dose and mature acknowledgement of the reality of this record — it is to be listened to once, and maybe even liked, but will not see the light of day again. Nostalgia is just too much affection, and the new realist the listener has become doesn’t quite have a respect, but not the same appreciation for the sentimental.
The digestion continues, and those same tracks that called back to the mainstream-but-still-respectable band R.E.M. became during the 1990s prove to be only a device for recollection.
Even the tracks that do excite (“That Someone Is You”) are lost between the fluff of the record, and will be marked only as barely-legitimate emulations.
The third stage becomes the most hostile of our line-up as pessimism rears its ugly head. The sizeable amount of filler begins to take the spotlight rather than hiding near the curtains. The damage caused by unlistenable tracks (“Every Day Is Yours To Win”) becomes impossible to ignore.
The fact that a mandolin was used on a track as forgettable as “Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I” instantaneously gives the song the nickname “Losing My Sacrilegion.”
And suddenly, that which felt all right during digestion has turned to excrement, and the listener angrily transitions to his fourth and final stage, simply titled, “Can we please put something else on?”
— Andy Collier is a senior studying audio production. If you, too, think Michael Stipe has an odd cadence, e-mail him at ac165406@ohiou.edu.
