I’m wondering if I’m the only music geek who feels this way……
My all-time favorite band is R.E.M. I’ve followed them since their first E.P. way back in 1980, I have all of their CD’s, I have a huge collection of their 7″ singles from their days on the I.R.S. label (most are duplicates: the commercial single, and the promo only “white label” version). Just listening to their older songs puts me at ease & no other music means as much to me.
The problem? I HATE just about every album they’ve put out over the past 10 years (with the exception of “Accelerate”, and I even hated the live record they released a couple of years ago). This makes me feel mighty guilty. When I see them in concert, I always say “well, the new songs don’t sound TOO bad”…then I go home & play them & I think they STILL suck. I yearn for them to just stop releasing new albums, and go on long tours where they play three hour sets of their greatest hits. It’s a selfish thing to think, but I really do think that they ran out of ideas a LONG time ago. Bill Berry definitely picked a good jumping off point! I realize that Michael Stipe, Peter Buck & Mike Mills think they’re coming up with great new ideas when they drop a new album every few years, but I honestly don’t think they are. I dutifully go out every Tuesday that a new R.E.M. CD comes out, buy it, and go home & am ultimately disappointed. It’s SO frustrating. Why can’t my fave band just STAY THE WAY THEY WERE???
Am I being childish? Selfish? Stupid? Does anyone out there relate to this?
