New Adventures in Hi-Fi

1996年リリースの10枚目のアルバム。この作品のほとんどの曲はツアー中に書かれたが、そんな感じが全編に溢れている作品。アメリカとイギリスでプラチナム・ディスクを獲得。シングル"E-Bow the Letter" にはパティ・スミスをフィーチャー。

Village Voice - Ranked #11 in the Village Voice's 1996 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll. NME - Ranked #16 in NME's 1996 critics' poll. Rolling Stone - Ranked #4 on Rolling Stone's list of the "Ten Best Albums" of 1996. Spin - Ranked #11 on Spin's list of the "20 Best Albums of '96." NME - 8 (out of 10) - "...one of the most disillusioned albums ever made....Every lyric...is harrowed from a soul so empty all it seems to hear is the echo of its own resignation....It's a litany of trouble beyond despair....not an easy album but...a great one..." New York Times - "...a beautiful hodgepodge....Some songs look back at phases of R.E.M.'s career while others suggest new directions....R.E.M. spends half this album experimenting, turning songs into soundscapes with...synthesizers, sitars and bouzouki, Mellotron and Autoharp..." Entertainment Weekly - "...if the arena-designed, occasionally forced MONSTER felt like a midlife crisis, NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI finds R.E.M. returning to their joyful idiosyncrasies....not in years has an R.E.M. album showed such breadth..." - Rating: A Entertainment Weekly - Ranked #4 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the "Top 10 Albums And Singles Of 1996." Spin - 6 (out of 10) - "...While the tunes seem banged out, as if the band forced itself to keep having a jammin' good time despite the aneurysms and whatnot, the arrangements are thoroughly tarted up, often by various sidemen. This is a mixed blessing, as NEW ADVENTURES pays greater attention to hip sounds than to happening songs..." Q - 5 Stars (out of 5) - "...it's easily the most diverse set of tunes R.E.M. have yet chosen to deliver....a seamlessly assembled mix of live performances...soundcheck reditions...'live' studio takes....hits many and varied targets virtually every time." Rolling Stone - 4.5 Stars (out of 5) - "...R.E.M.'s most ambitious album to date....there's a sense of spontaneity here that's rarely been heard on an R.E.M. record....a sense of ambition and liberation that R.E.M. haven't displayed since 1985's FABLES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION..." Mojo - Ranked #58 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "[They sound] refreshed and enriched."

Recorded during and immediately following R.E.M.'s disaster-prone Monster tour, New Adventures in Hi-Fi feels like it was recorded on the road. Not only are all of Michael Stipe's lyrics on the album about moving or travel, the sound is ragged and varied, pieced together from tapes recorded at shows, soundtracks, and studios, giving it a loose, careening charm. New Adventures has the same spirit of much of R.E.M.'s IRS records, but don't take the title of New Adventures in Hi-Fi lightly -- R.E.M. tries different textures and new studio tricks. "How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us" opens the album with a rolling, vaguely hip-hop drum beat and slowly adds on jazzily dissonant piano. "E-Bow the Letter" starts out as an updated version of "Country Feedback," then it turns in on itself with layers of moaning guitar effects and Patti Smith's haunting backing vocals. Clocking in at seven minutes, "Leave" is the longest track R.E.M. has yet recorded and it's one of their strangest and best -- an affecting minor-key dirge with a howling, siren-like feedback loop that runs throughout the entire song. Elsewhere, R.E.M. tread standard territory: "Electrolite" is a lovely piano-based ballad, "Departure" rocks like a Document outtake, the chiming opening riff of "Bittersweet Me" sounds like it was written in 1985, "New Test Leper" is gently winding folk-rock, and "The Wake-Up Bomb" and "Undertow" rock like the Monster outtakes they are. New Adventures in Hi-Fi may run a little too long -- it clocks in at 62 minutes, by far the longest album R.E.M. has ever released -- yet in its multifaceted sprawl, they wound up with one of their best records of the '90s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine|