Around The Sun R.E.M.

• 1Leaving New York04:49
• 2Electron Blue04:12
• 3The Outsiders04:15
• 4Make It All Okay03:44
• 5Final Straw04:08
• 6I Wanted To Be Wrong04:35
• 7Wanderlust03:04
• 8Boy In The Well05:22
• 9Aftermath03:56
• 10High Speed Train05:03
• 11The Worst Joke Ever03:38
• 12The Ascent Of Man04:07
• 13Around The Sun04:29
• Total Runtime55:22

Info for Around The Sun

Around the Sun is REM's first studio album since the acclaimed platinum Reveal in 2001. This eagerly anticipated album follows the success of last year's multi-platinum greatest hits collection, In Time: The Best of REM 1988-2003.

Around the Sun, REM's 13th album, was written by REM and produced by REM and Pat McCarthy. It features the evocative new single 'Leaving New York' and 12 other new songs including the enigmatic, 'The Outsiders', 'Wanderlust' with its infectious chorus, and the epic tale of 'Boy in the Well'.

„Since the careening, ragged Reckoning followed the hazy, dreamlike Murmur, each R.E.M. album had an element of a surprise, offering something different than what came before. That's not the case with Around the Sun, which refines and polishes the blueprint of Reveal. This is as slow and ballad-heavy as Automatic for the People, but where that album was filled with raw emotion and weird detours, Around the Sun is tasteful and streamlined. It offers no weighty themes and is emotionally removed. With their layered, low-key production, R.E.M. seem hell-bent on leaving behind anything that could be construed as their signature sound, so keyboards and drum machines are pushed to the front as Buck's guitar strums instead of jangles and Mills' background vocals are buried in the mix under Stipe's double-tracked harmonies. All the quirks in the production have been sanded down and glossed over.“ (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG)

Peter Buck, guitar
Mike Mills, keyboards, bass guitar
Michael Stipe, vocals

Recorded Early 2003 – early 2004
Engineered by Jamie Candiloro
Produced by Pat McCarthy, R.E.M.

Digitally remastered

R.E.M.
were an alternative rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, United States in 1980. The band originally consisted of Michael Stipe (vocals), Peter Buck (guitar, mandolin), Mike Mills (bass, keyboards, vocals) and Bill Berry (drums). Berry retired from the band in October 1997 after having suffered a brain aneurysm in 1995.

R.E.M. released its first single, 'Radio Free Europe', in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. The single was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years through subsequent releases, constant touring, and the support of college radio. Following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit in 1987 with the single 'The One I Love'. The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.

By the early 1990s, when alternative rock began to experience broad mainstream success, R.E.M. was viewed as a pioneer of the genre and released its two most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), which veered from the band's established sound. R.E.M.'s 1994 release, Monster, was a return to a more rock-oriented sound. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract in history. The following year, Bill Berry left the band, while Buck, Mills, and Stipe continued the group as a three-piece. Through some changes in musical style, the band continued its career into the next decade with mixed critical and commercial success. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a 'working rehearsal'. R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from their 2005 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it 'one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made.'

In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and they began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.

On September 21, 2011, the band announced via its website that it was 'calling it a day as a band'. Stipe said that he hoped their fans realized it 'wasn't an easy decision': 'All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way.' Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The band members will finish their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, scheduled for release in November 2011. The album will be the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions.

On 21 September 2011, after over 30 years together, R.E.M. announced that they had split up. (Source: artists.letssingit.com)

This album contains no booklet.