R.E.M. : Live At The Olympia In Dublin 39 Songs :: Review

In the 80’s, R.E.M. was one of my favorite bands that could do no wrong.  In the 90’s, R.E.M released a couple of great albums and declared that they would break up on the verge of the millennium.  While saddened, I knew the band had a good run and that the memories they created would be with me forever.  Fate intervened and instead of breaking up as they had claimed during this period, R.E.M. lost their drummer Bill Berry in 1997 but continued to soldier on as a “three-legged dog.”  Rather than become a band that was content to sit on its back catalog in the 00’s, bandleader Michael Stipe claimed that R.E.M. would now be an experimental band with alternative forms of percussion on their subsequent releases and that ultimately illustrated that the band was dangerously treading water.

Fast forward to 2007 and after the abysmal release of R.E.M’s last proper album “Around The Sun,” R.E.M. acknowledged that they needed some type of intervention.  R.E.M. wished to create a better album and reconvened in the winter to write stronger songs. During late June and early July, R.E.M. appeared reinvigorated and rehearsed the new material on a 5 day stint at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, Ireland from where the origins of  “Live At The Olympia 39 Songs” stems.  “Live At The Olympia 39 Songs” is a live compilation that showcases the new material that would later appear on “Accelerate” along with large amounts of “Reckoning,” “Fables of the Reconstruction,” and “Chronic Town.” It is evident R.E.M. had a blast playing the older songs as some of the renditions remain among their best of recent interpretations.

What’s not surprising is that the newer material on “Live At The Olympia 39 Songs” is the weakest and doesn’t necessarily jive with the vibe that the classic material conjures.  It seems out of place and doesn’t really connect with anything much like the rest of R.E.M’s hollow 00’ output.  Granted, this recording is patched together from a series of nights, but the new stuff feels a bit shallow and soulless.  Had this new stuff been excised from the recording, I would enjoy the album a whole lot more.  Luckily with the advent of playlists, you can arrange the songs in any way possible and I will probably do just that.  Whether this release is a contractual obligation or one off is negligible, take it at face value and listen to a band that is happy to reconnect with its audience.

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This post was submitted by greg.