Sweetness Follows
I know that this is vitriol, no solution, spleen-venting, but I feel better having screamed, don’t you?
Ignoreland, R.E.M.
Bush-whacked after ten years of Republicans in the White House, R.E.M - the poster-boys of the alternative scene - produced Automatic for the People. It’s a dignified elegy to the death of American optimism with songs of loss, death, unfulfilled dreams and flawed heroes.
It’s also a work that they have yet to surpass. The albums that followed have been variable in quality to put it kindly. And they’re not the only ones. Eight years of Clinton has left the counter-culture lazy, inward looking, self-pitying, and self-obsessed.
Maybe four more years of Bush will wake it up.
Mark Waters marked time at 4:14 pm on November 9th, 2004 .
