Reading Ethan Kaplan's post on Murmurs about how this is the best reviewed album since Hi-Fi is at best just propaganda and maybe a bit of revisionism.
Now reviews are a bit of a failure to begin with. Many times, it's a critics intial opinion about an album when it is released. They often do not have time to completely digest an album and at times those feelings could change dramatically as to whether the album has initial pleasures and feels a bit old after a year or so or whether the album slowly begins to grow and develop over time. We are all guilty as music lovers of knowing that tastes change both for the better and worse.
Now the reviews for R.E.M.'s albums in the 21st Century can all be found here and it's telling that 'Collapse Into Now' is currently in 3rd place among studio albums (although presently this could change as reviews are still coming in). Out of all the albums, Accelerate appears to be the clear winner and it's telling that it received quite a few outstanding reviews whereas Collapse has received several "Good" reviews.
I think the statistics speak for themselves, however, I do think it is a bit bothersome to see a site become the "Fox News" of R.E.M fandom.
It's only a test of time whether we can say whether an album will become better, worse or stay the same but one thing for sure is that it is (as of writing this) undeniably not the best reviewed album since New Adventures.
Comments
yeah
I agree that you've slightly misread his intent with that particular thread, but I do think you have a point about Ethan on Murmurs, now that the album has hit the streets, it's not so bad, but his comments throughout this campaign have been, at best, unedifying and at worse, bullying. It's true he's been running his own little Murdochracy for a while now.
Oh c'mon. Metacritic rates
Oh c'mon. Metacritic rates Accelerate at 79, Reveal at 76 and Collapse Into Now at 74 (it's been going up slowly but surely all week too). A difference of 2-5 points is pretty much meaningless, I would say, hardly a case of the statistics "speaking for themselves". These are all albums that have been rated as 'good but not as good as their best work', which is fair enough. All that's 'undeniable' from the Metacritic page is that Around The Sun is weaker than their other albums and that Live at the Olympia is a better live album than R.E.M. Live. Again, no arguments from me there...
But the bigger point is that Ethan's post wasn't saying that CiN is the best reviewed album since New Adventures. It was saying that every R.E.M. album seems to attract the same kind of criticism - basically that R.E.M. are worse than they used to be because Stipe's lyrics / vocals and / or the music are becoming more obvious. It's a point that occurred to me too, reading your review of Collapse Into Now. My R.E.M. memory is long enough to remember them getting slagged for 'selling out' from Document (how dare they have a hit single with the word 'Love' in the title), through Green (signing for a major label? Writing pop songs?? One of which is even called Pop Song???), Out Of Time (Shiny Happy People - say no more), Automatic (Everybody Hurts - ditto) to the present day. If the internet had existed in 1984, I'm sure people would have been saying something similar about Don't Go Back To Rockville.
Yes, Murmurs is at times too close to the band for comfort. But what is far more "bothersome" to me, is the bitter ex-Murmursians attempting to score cheap and invalid points at Ethan's expense.
Oh c'mon. Metacritic rates
"My POINT is, this is probably the best reviewed record from the band since Hi-Fi. I started Murmurs before Hi-Fi's release (April of 1996), so still have the catalog of reviews from way back then somewhere."- Ethan Kaplan
I think the point speaks for itself however, that it isn't the best, and yes I agree with you that a 2 - 5 point difference is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. A better statement would be that "Collapse into Now's review are comparable with those of Accelerate and Reveal". But for a band that has been trying to find itself for the last decade, that is not much of a storyline.
For what it's worth you can look at the glass half full and say that the critics have criticized the band but at the same time you can say the opposite that this is a "Return to Form" or "Stipe never sounded better".
Read the cliche remarks made for both Accelearate
http://www.metacritic.com/music/accelerate/critic-reviews
and Collapse into Now
http://www.metacritic.com/music/collapse-into-now/critic-reviews
I think that the only review that really makes a difference is Pitchfork's review because they do have the power to sway the youth. And yes, you can say that it's review of Collapse is the best studio album of the 21st Century beating out Accelerate by a tenth of a point. But 6.8 is not 8.6.
good point.
"I do think it is a bit bothersome to see a site become the "Fox News" of R.E.M fandom."
And that's exactly why I cannot be bothered to visit that site at the moment.
Murmurs Thread
I didn't get that out of the thread at all, Ethan says: "Something interesting in reading the reviews of Collapse is that most of the reviews have been written before. So I went back and sure enough, people have said the same thing about every REM record it seems..." That doesn't translate to me as "how this is the best reviewed album since Hi-Fi is at best just propaganda and maybe a bit of revisionism." I also don't get the "Fox News" comment. Yes, he tends to disagree with most anyone that has anything negative to say about the new album/videos but it's not as though they're being banned for those comments. He's always had that attitude even before his tenure with WB. Off putting? Yes but "Fox News" worthy? I don't really think so.
Murmurs Thread
I really do not have a problem with Ethan having an opinion about an album but if he is going to start making up statements that are obviously not true to further propagandize his own point then I think that it has to be said.