Liveblogging Accelerate: “Accelerate”
Posted on March 31st, 2008 by Josh Hathaway
The title track and the midpoint of the record. The guitars are pushed out front again on this one; electric guitars with classic ’90s distortion.
Stipe and Mills have this amazing almost-on-key harmonization on this one. They’ve always done that really well. Mills isn’t quite singing the right notes, but somehow it still sounds pretty good.
“Accelerate” is the sound of paranoia. This one feels more fully developed than a couple of the others on here. I like this one. I’m going to come back to it.
The production is still a little too muddy for me. I hate the way some of this has been recorded.
Filed under: Tags: R.E.M.
I’m listening again this morning and I still love this one. This might be my favorite on the record. Very good.
Love this one– reminds me of So Fast So Numb on HiFi. It’s genuine and urgent, not forced like some of the other “rock” songs on this album.
Thanks for the comment, Kelvin, and very good insight. Some of it does feel a little forced in places.
I hadn’t thought about the “So Fast So Numb” connection but now that you mention it I definitely hear that. That’s a good thing. I love that song.