It’s the curse of most globe-trotting phenomenon — be it the Rolling Stones, the Who or, in this case, R.E.M. — to eventual become a jukebox during concerts, their newest songs sounding lackluster, stinking of filler, buttressed by fan favorites.
Now that R.E.M. has released an official live album, it’s only a small surprise that the 27-year-old group doesn’t have much to offer. “R.E.M. Live,” out Tuesday, was recorded in Ireland. Like the album’s name implies, it’s a bit unoriginal.
R.E.M. wasn’t always this way. Just more than a decade ago, when the band released the concert video “Road Movie,” its set list was balanced nearly one to one with old and new material. Then, the new songs felt vital, competing for attention with past hits.
There’s not much competition on “Live,” recorded in 2005. It’s not that it’s a bad concert album. It’s just that it isn’t a good one.
You almost feel sorry for the band, playing their 1987 hit “The One I Love,” or churning out a faithfully rocking version of fan favorite “Cuyahoga.” These are excellent songs, and R.E.M. is a tight live act. The material sounds reliable here.
But when they trot out a newer song, everything goes to pieces.
Part of the problem is the new material itself. Songs like “The Ascent of Man” and “Electron Blue” don’t connect nearly as well as “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” or “Man on the Moon.” Even “Leaving New York,” which shines brightest among their recent tracks, feels like it would have been an afterthought during R.E.M.’s heyday.
While much of the new material is dull, lead singer Michael Stipe’s rare stabs at conversation are irritating.
“We come from a strange, far-away and often confusing place called the United States of America,” he tells the Dublin crowd, the pretension building.
“The next two songs that we’re going to perform are songs that we wrote as protest to the actions of our government and the current administration. This is our State of the Union address.”
Yeah, Stipe, you set America straight! In front of, um, all those Irish 20-somethings. Hmm.
Well, at least maybe the songs will be good, right?
Oops. No.
“I Wanted to be Wrong” is another clunker from their 2004 release “Around the Sun” that lacks punch — hardly the type of anthem that rallies the troops. “Final Straw” sounds a bit better, but falls flat as Stipe raises “my hand to broadcast my objection,” eventually noting that “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
There’s nothing like a platitude to tear those Bushies apart.
Despite the flameouts, there are some flashes of brilliance here.
The band performs a moving rendition of “Everybody Hurts,” emphasizing the song’s strength as an anthem. A clean guitar picks the familiar chords as Stipe begins to sing. The crowd quickly joins him, and claps along as he sings “everybody hurts sometimes, so hold on.” Arguably, this version is better than their 1992 studio version.
Walking into this whole live album thing, R.E.M. faced an uphill struggle. Live records rarely convey the raw energy of seeing a concert, making them seem sort of pointless. At the same time, since the group avoided releasing a live album for nearly three decades, expectations were unusually high.
Really, it almost seemed like the group could meet the task. The mere fact that they were putting the disc out now seemed to be a sign, as if they were saying, “Hey, we’ve got some moves still.”
Maybe, an optimist thought, they weren’t trying to simply cash in on yet another disc filled with old favorites — like the greatest hits compilations that came out in 2003 and 2006.
The group, after all, is in the studio now, working on a release for 2008. Maybe they would pepper this concert with livelier renditions of new material and reinterpreted takes on their classics.
Sadly, that’s not the case. For being a live album, R.E.M.’s latest lacks life.
Reporter Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455 or arathbun@ heraldnet.com.
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