R.E.M- Every Day Is Yours To Win

R.E.M- Every Day Is Yours To Win

Two contrasting reviews of this record  

I-At last! R.E.M. have come up with an album to compare with their 'greats' of the past. Brand loyalty can come at a price, and R.E.M. have tested my patience with a series of disappointing albums, 'Accelerate' promised much but in reality just offered 4 or 5 good tracks and some really poor tracks also.
'Collapse Into Now' in many ways offers a similar style to 'Accelerate' but 12 of the 12 tracks hit the mark. I am not ready (yet!) to heap too much praise, but this could prove to be a truly great R.E.M. album. I guess my low expectations, might lead me to over state the quality of this album, but I need to go back to albums such as 'Up' and 'Reveal' to hear equivalent quality (and I hold both of these albums in very high esteem).
What is particularly impressive about 'Collapse Into Now' is the combination between the gentle and the more rocky tracks. This album flows beautifully and will probably satisfy all R.E.M. fans who have stuck with them over the disappointments of recent years.
So if you are hesitating in respect to this latest album, get out there now and buy your copy!

PS: This was indeed the final R.E.M. album, at least they went out on a positive note!! 

II- REM's creative decline in the last decade coincided with the loss of drummer Bill Berry and their apparent need to make more keyboardy and acoustic albums, rather than the elemental rock that made them such a 1980s/90s force. However, Collapse Into Now continues the return to form of 2008's Accelerate by rewinding to their old classics to relocate their mojo. The sublime Uberlin sounds a bit like Drive; magisterial opener Discoverer vaguely echoes Disturbance at the Heron House – and so on. Michael Stipe is even enjoying making wilfully enigmatic lyrics again ("I feel like an alligator coming up the escalator", anybody?) and there are some outstanding songs in the sincere, Katrina-aftermath ballad Oh My Heart and plangent Walk It Back. Collapse Into Now isn't groundbreaking, but feeling comfortable in their old skin has produced REM's best effort in years.

                                                      Short biography

R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's unclear vocals. 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 by subsequent acts such as Nirvana and Pavement 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 trio. 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. R.E.M. disbanded in September 2011, announcing the split on its website.

   Honestly, I dont like this song because is not the type of music that touch me  but I must say that the video  is quite funny and original and the message of the song is positive and encouraging. I'm not saying that this is bad music so i dont want te see coments like "If you dont like them you are nothing" or other offensive stuff. I think that the music is to corny, sweet, like " a cherry pie". The melodies are really simple, 4 open chords played with the guitar. There's to much keyboards  and also is a really repetitive melody. The drummer must by Ringo Star because the 3.30 minutes of the song he's playing the same slow rhythm, no fills, no bridges, no nothing, just an eternal ostinato. Also I think that they use a lot of sinthesizer and other electronic effects that try to hide the mediocrity of hte melody.

The lyrics arent good, just the chorus has a good message and is the heart of the song. "Every day is yours to win" is a good message, more in these days that societies are suffering depresion, mostly young people. The singularity of the message is to show that each one of us has a talent or a special quality that makes us amazing, uniques and "heros". it's a very positive and encouraging message. You must profit each day and became your own hero. 

the video also shows a message, thanks to new technologie we can became heros in the internet and be famous or maybe live thanks to internet. REM try to show that each one of us can enter by the Big Door in the celebrity world. There are few cases of people with their own chanel in youtube and the are famous beacause the have some especial qualities that make them funny or intrasting.

So I think that the message is:  we must find our talent to became our hero and also thanks to internet we can became the hero of a lot of people arond the world. That's the meaning of "win".