Image details: Live 8 London – Stage served by picapp.com

R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails and Stone Temple Pilots have been tapped to participate in the 10th annual Voodoo Music Festival down in New Orleans from October 24-26.

Tickets go on sale this Friday, May 2, and for all your additional info check out the festival’s official site.

Besides the Voodoo Fest, Lollapalooza and the Virgin Festival had previously announced line-ups filled with alternative bands including Radiohead, Rage Against The Machine, and the Foo Fighters. Oddly enough, Trent Reznor and company will be a part of all three festivals.

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Afterall, the band released back to back classics with 1991’s Out of Time and 1992’s Automatic for the People, only to be followed up by the 1994 rocker Monster.

Then, the Athens legends began a slow descent.

In retrospect, 1996’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi is actually a great album, but was hard to realize that then after the departure of drummer Bill Berry and the following releases.

Up from 1998, Reveal from 2001 and Around the Sun from 2004 are, for the most part, lackluster albums that many have forgotten.

Long story short, I haven’t looked forward to a new R.E.M. album in a long, long, long time.

So, does the band’s latest release, Accelerate, fulfill expectations?

Absolutely. Critics were actually right when they announced that this is R.E.M.’s best release in years.

The guys sound exceptionally fresh, as if they’re catching a second wind just to respond to current events.

Accelerate is a right to the point and solid rocker, with some classic R.E.M. sprinkled in between.

This is album should defiantly be picked up.

Check out these tracks:

“I’m Gonna DJ”

“Living Well Is The Best Revenge”

And, of course the video for “Supernatural Superserious”

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FYI: R.E.M.

For now, enjoy this performance of “Man on the Moon” from their induction into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame from last year. As if this song couldn’t get any cooler, the band was joined by one Eddie Vedder. Sweet.

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You can check out the track, “Supernatural Superseious”, on R.E.M.’s official site.

It’s a pretty standard and straight forward rock song, but it’s still sweet. I think it’s a catchy tune.

Last month the band shot the video for “Supernatural Superserious” in New York City at a restaurant and a sex shop.

Here’s a brief behind the scenes look at the video shoot.

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Accelerate will be the follow-up to 2004’s Around The Sunand was recorded in Vancouver and Dublin. The album was also produced Jacknife Lee, who has worked with newer acts that include Bloc Party and Snow Patrol.

Confirmed tracks for Accelerate are: “Until The Day Is Done”, “Living Well Is The Best Revenge”, “Mr. Richards”, “Staring Down The Barrel Of Middle Existence” and “I’m Gonna DJ”. The band previewed several new tracks during their five night stand at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin last summer.

Michael Stipe told Q that the guitar-driven LP is “the fastest we’ve made in 20 years” and he also added ”I think the songs on Around The Sun are great, but in the process of recording we lost our focus as a band. Now, that focus is back. And it’s razor sharp.”

I think R.E.M. have grabbed my interest, sounds like it has potential to be a great album.

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Live was recorded during two nights in Dublin back in 2005 and is blend of classic and newer R.E.M. tunes. Live is 2 discs and a dvd that should keep every R.E.M. fan occupied.

Here’s the tracklisting:

Disc 1:
1. I Took Your Name
2. So Fast, So Numb
3. Boy In The Well
4. Cuyahoga
5. Everybody Hurts
6. Electron Blue                                                                                                                                7. Bad Day
8. The Ascent Of Man
9. The Great Beyond
10. Leaving New York
11. Orange Crush
12. I Wanted To Be Wrong
13. Final Straw
14. Imitation Of Life
15. The One I Love
16. Walk Unafraid
17. Losing My Religion

Disc 2:
1. What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?
2. Drive
3. (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville
4. I’m Gonna DJ
5. Man On The Moon

Disc 3 (DVD):
1. I Took Your Name
2. So Fast, So Numb
3. Boy in the Well
4. Cuyahoga
5. Everybody Hurts
6. Electron Blue
7. Bad Day
8. Ascent Of Man
9. The Great Beyond
10 .Leaving New York
11. Orange Crush
12. I Wanted To Be Wrong
13. Final Straw
14. Imitation Of Life
15. The One I Love
16. Walk Unafraid
17. Losing My Religion
18. What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?
19. Drive
20. (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville
21. I’m Gonna DJ
22. Man On The Moon

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• The band made their first public performance in April of 1980 at a friend’s birthday party.
• Before settling on R.E.M., the band considered the names Twisted Kites, Can of Piss and Negro Wives.
• In May of 1980 R.E.M. headlined their first show at Tyrone’s Club in Athens, GA.
• The band open up for The Police in Atlanta in December, 1980.
• By April of 1981 they have recorded their first demo.
• May, 1982 their debut EP, Chronic Town, is released. Around this time, the band also signs with I.R.S. Records.
• R.E.M.’s first full debut, Murmur, is released in April, 1983.
• In 1983, the band opens up The Police at Shea Stadium and make their national televsion debut on The Late Show With David Letterman.
• Reckoning, the band’s second album, is released on April 16, 1984.
• The song “Without” appears in the Tom Hanks classic Bachelor Party.
• In 1985 the band’s “Preconstruction” college tour previewed songs from their third album, Fables of the Reconstruction.
• 1986’s Lifes Rich Pageant extended to a wider audience.
• 1987 was a big year for R.E.M.; they began a U.S. tour in January, a compilation of rarities, Dead Letter Office, is released, as well as, their breakthrough album Document.
• “The One I Love” reaches #9 on the Billboard charts by December of 1987.
• R.E.M. signs with Warner Bros. in June of 1988.
• I.R.S. releases the compilation Eponymous in 1988.
• Green, the band’s 1988 debut with Warner Bros., would go on to double platinum status.
• 1991’s Out of Time would hit #1 on the U.S. charts.
• The single “Shiny Happy People” features Kate Pierson of the B-52’s.
• R.E.M. releases their eighth studio album, Automatic for the People on October 6, 1992.
• Former Led Zeppelin bassist, John Paul Jones, composed the string arrangements for “Drive”, “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite”, “Everybody Hurts” and “Nightswimming”.
• In the Kurt Cobain biography, Heavier Than Heaven, it states that Cobain was listening to Automatic for the People before his suicide.
• Monster released on September 27, 1994.
• “Let Me In” was written about Kurt Cobain, in fact, Cobain;s guitar (a Fender Jag-Stang) was given to Peter Buck and used on this song. The guitar can also be seen in the “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?” video.
• In 1995 R.E.M. embarks on their first tour in six years.
• R.E.M. re-signs with Warner Bros. for a reported $80 million contract in 1996.
• New Adventues in Hi-Fi is released on September 10, 1986.
• Patti Smith appears on the single “E-Bow the Letter”.
• Drummer Bill Berry leaves the band in October of 1997.
• 1998’s Up was the first album without Bill Berry and the first album to come with lyrics.
• Up featured drummer Barrett Martin from the Screaming Trees and Beck’s touring drummer Joey Waronker.
• The band contributes “The Great Beyond” and wrote the instrumental score for the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon.
• Reveal is released on May 15, 2001.
• Warner Bros. releases In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 in October of 2003.
• Around the Sun is released on October 5, 2004.
• R.E.M. is part of the Vote for Change Tour, touring with Bright Eyes, John Fogerty and Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band.
• 2005 marked the band’s first full length world tour in ten years.
• In 2006 And I Feel Fine…The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 is released.
• R.E.M. contributes a cover of John Lennon’s ”#9 Dream” for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur.
•  On March 12, 2007 the band is inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Eddie Vedder.
• The band is currently working on their fourteenth album.

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The song itself is quite beautiful. It opens with simple and quit guitars with great lyrics by Stipe. It then picks up during the chorus and gets stuck in your head rather quickly. Right now, it’s one of my favorite R.E.M. songs.

Here are the awesome lyrics:                                                                                                          I move across, innocence lost
All flashing pulsar
I move across the earth in my new pattern shirt
I pass satellites

“You’re so bitter,” your complaint
I can’t get you anything.
I don’t know who you’re livin for
I don’t you at all anymore.

I’d sooner chew my leg off,
Than be trapped in this.
How easy you think of all of this as bittersweet me

I can’t taste it
I’m tired and naked.
I don’t know what I’m hungry for
I don’t know what I want anymore

I move across, candy floss
I move like a tank
I move across the room
With a heart full of gloom
I’m stronger than you think.

Oh my peer,
Your veneer is wearing thin and cracking.
The surface and forms underneath,
Underneath is lacking.

I’d sooner chew my leg off,
Than be trapped in this.
How easy you think of all of this as bittersweet me

I couldn’t taste it.
I’m tired and naked.
I don’t know what I’m hungry for.
I don’t know what I want anymore.

You move across, innocence lost,
All static and desire,
You’re blue in the face from navel gaze,
You set yourself on fire.

You strip down and lay yourself out,
I know you can’t fake it,
But are you tire and naked?
Are you tire and naked?

I’d sooner chew my leg off,
Than be trapped in this.
How easy you think of all of this as bittersweet me

I couldn’t taste it
I’m tired and naked.
I don’t know what I’m hungry for.
I don’t know what I want anymore.

The video was similar to an Italian movie entitled Stanco E Nudo, which in English means “Tired and Naked”.

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