Title: A Sad State Of Affairs, a/k/a New Adventures In Lame
Product review: It's sad to look at what REM became on this album, a disappointing follow-up to the equally disappointing "Monster." Again, no melodies to speak of, badly constructed songs, and most pathetic of all, attempts at hip-hop moves that sound white-boy, wanna-be inauthentic. "Monster" proved that REM isn't a punk band; "New Adventures" proves that they can't be a modern "funky" down-wit-it band, either. What happened to just being yourself, Michael?I half suspect that Bill Berry didn't really have an aneurysm; he just heard the final mix on this album and decided to get out before it got any worse. Finally, this album is TOO LONG. They didn't write enough music to fill up the time, but then again they barely managed to write any songs at all on this one. For a long-time REM fan like me, this is a bitter pill to swallow, and I didn't.
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