‘Around The Sun’: The R.E.M. album that “wasn’t listenable”
Throughout their glittering career, R.E.M. released 15 studio albums, and naturally, they didn’t achieve perfection with every attempt. Almost every band has one hiccup in their canon, and R.E.M. believes their nadir is the 2004 release, Around The Sun.
The circumstances surrounding making the album were difficult for the group. During the middle of the recording process, R.E.M. decided to put the process on a halt and diverted their intention to promote their greatest hits album, which they also toured. When the group returned to the studio, the initial spark for Around The Sun had dissipated, and they failed to get it back on track.
Due to the diversion delaying their plans, R.E.M. took over a year to complete Around The Sun before it was finally unleashed on the general public in October 2004. Although they were past their commercial peak, the album still sold two million copies worldwide by 2007.
For the album, the band reconvened with Pat McCarthy, a producer previously at the helm for Up and Reveal. With the benefit of hindsight, Michael Stipe later told Pitchfork how McCarthy was in an impossible position for all of their projects together. Stipe explained: “We were working with an excellent producer named Pat McCarthy, someone who did not have an enviable job of trying to get the three of us to agree on anything or even sit down at table and talk about it. He had a really tough job— particularly on the last record [2004’s Around the Sun] because we released a best-of right in the middle of it and went out and toured that. We came back and tried to pick up where we had left [off]. We had just completely lost focus on it.”
The singer’s confession came in 2008 when he promoted their follow-up album, Accelerate. When asked if it was a reaction to Around The Sun, Stipe replied:” You’re going to read that over and over again, and we freely admit that we lost focus on the last record. But we also say, and people tend to downplay this part, I really like the material on that record.”
Interestingly, Stipe doesn’t dislike the tracks on the album, just the execution. He added: “I think the songs are great. It’s just the way we approached them in the studio that really I don’t think made them shine as much as they might have. And whatever steps we’ve taken, I’m not going to badmouth any of the work that we’ve done, but I’m also not deluded about it.”
Stipe isn’t alone in his damning analysis of Around The Sun, with guitarist Peter Buck expressing similar feelings of discontent. According to NME, Buck admitted the record “wasn’t really listenable” and said: “It sounds like what it is, a bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can’t stand it anymore.”
It’s natural for any band working together for so long to stagnate, which happened with R.E.M. on Around The Sun. Thankfully, they managed to resurrect their mistake and part ways on a high note before a similar legacy-tarnishing error was made.
