Next month, R.E.M. will release their curtain call, Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011, a 40-track retrospective collection that spans the iconic band’s three-decade run. Included among their most memorable hits, fan favorites, and live takes are three new songs recorded over the summer: “Hallelujah,” “A Month of Saturdays,” and “We All Go Back to Where We Belong.” This week, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills shared the latter cut, a poignant mid-tempo ballad that bookends their storied career with one more indelible single. Hear R.E.M.’s swan song above.
R.E.M.
This Month In Music: September 2011
By Casey Newton Wilco’s 8th record, The Whole Love, came out in September, and was greeted with hosannahs by rock critics yearning for a return to form. “Powerful, mind-reeling stuff, if you have the heart for it,” said Rolling Stone. “Wilco’s most sonically adventurous work since 2004’s A Ghost Is Born,” offered Entertainment Weekly. Pitchfork, in … Read more
Video: R.E.M. – “Überlin”
In which Kick-Ass star Aaron Johnson dances his heart out to R.E.M.’s new Collapse Into Now cut “Überlin” along London’s Brick Lane for the song’s official video directed by (his fiancée) Sam Taylor-Wood. Meanwhile, at least two more videos from the LP, helmed by Oscar host/actor/Yale scholar James Franco, are reportedly on the way.
“Sam and I had talked about doing something for R.E.M., but I had no idea that she and Aaron would create such a work of beauty,” said Michael Stipe. “It’s as if all the film references instantly updated themselves to ’21st Century Now.’”
(See if you can spot the brief “Single Ladies” moment.)