Besides his first love in all of the world, that being Derek Jeter, Matthew Marrone spends his spare moments writing poetry about Michael Stipe and sending me naked pictures of himself. He has taken a break from both of these activities to engage in a conversation on the next R.E.M. album.
Before you read the following post, I would suggest you go back an reread Mattymarrone’s pedestrian comments on Discoverer as well as his newfound skills of working with jpegs. My favorite part was when he spelled my last name with 1 N and thus made me Jewish.
Secondly, I would suggest you listen to It Happened Today.
Third, I would suggest you watch the Collapse into Now Trailer. Does anyone know if this is going to be in 3D? Has anyone listened to this 3D Glasses?
For those that are keeping up with this back and forth Mr. Marrone decided to show off his photoshop skills by defacing American Currency as well as writing some comments to that effect. Below is my response to that as well as some commentary about today’s news.
Dearest Matthias the Drunk,
Before I get onto the comments regarding your post I first wanted to thank you for the invitation to your ‘Collapse Into Now’ Record Release Party that you were going to have. Unfortunately, I have other plans but was looking forward to various games and contests such as the Collapse into Now Circle Jerk contest. It sounded like a worthwhile endeavor to be sure and can forward you in the right direction if you are looking for a group of fans that just want to get their photos taken with the band.
I am appreciating this venture so far, I have to admit on this snowy night in Chicago, picturing you behind your computer screen wrapped up in your Snuggie and drinking a pina colada singing “Hip Hip Hooray”. (Note to readers: Matthew actually does have a snuggie).
However, while you were so busy photoshopping some awesome pics of Peter Buck on the dollar bill you pretty much proved my point that the only thing that we should be giving the band this holiday season is wrinkle cream.
I do not accept in any manner this belief that our senior citizens need our pity, that rock and roll is a young persons game, that older artists still cannot make great records. It’s sorta like saying that after Coca-Cola changed their formula to “New Coke” that we should be grateful that we have it at all. However, we may disagree on this subject it was only 1 song, a mere fleshwound on the entire album.
Today we are graced with a couple items in our stockings. First was the release of ‘It Happened Today’, the second song to be released, this being part of a special iTunes promo.
I would argue that this song would have sucked if not for the integral parts that Eddie Vedder added. Let’s be honest that Vedder pretty much got this gig so that he would get in on the free R.E.M. lunch they were offering. I might give the band a break, and chalk this up to the fact that an eager press picked up on some of the guest list on this album and it was improperly inflated but the fact of the matter is that the trailer is using Eddie Vedders name as a special guest on this song.
Musicwise, this is reminiscent of that Green to Automatic era R.E.M. That sorta like gentle pop song written perfectly for Stipe to shine on. In terms of music this excited me more than ‘Discoverer’, not that I am eager for a certain sound, rather just thought it felt better in the end.
I thought that Michael sounded better on this one than on ‘Discoverer’. He sounded more himself, more natural and somehow I think that uniqueness of his voice should be something of a tool rather than his ever growing tendency to shout through the songs like on Discoverer.
Lyricwise, I am just not feeling it yet. The song’s length is about 3:48 and about 80 seconds into the song or less than 1/3 of the way there we are in on the All-Star Jam harmony section of the song. Harmonies do not work for the sake of the harmony, but the buildup before.
Which leads me to the introduction of Collapse Into Now the trailer. Trailers are great for compacting, all the hooks, all the kick-ass moments into a 2 minute trailer. I typically do not see a movie based on a trailer and have found this silly venture of putting 10-15 second clips out another ridiculous record company venture. I have yet to buy an album this year based on any similar marketing scheme. It would almost be as if some boss in the marketing office needs to feel important and I say give them hell. I mean the person that put the video together is obviously skilled at Final Cut Pro and I bet they were giving themselves a bunch of high fives in the Warner Bros. Offices. I hear that if you email WBR they will send you a package of the cellophane that they will use to wrap ‘Collapse Into Now’. I figured that maybe you would appreciate that since you get all hot and bothered on record release day.
However, back to my original thoughts was that you need to give a bad record three months of publicity to sell it, a good record sells itself in less than a month.
But I am not sitting here in a Snuggie staring at Michael Stipe’s ass.