For anyone wondering what Michael Stipe wants after all these years, Stipe has chosen R.E.M.'s 15th album as the place to run down his wish list. "I want Whitman proud!" he declares in the superb finale, "Blue." "I want Patti Lee proud," meaning old friend Patti Smith, who's there in the studio making gorgeously guttural noises. "I want my brothers proud," probably meaning Peter Buck and Mike Mills, who cut loose with a country-feedback guitar groove. "I want my sisters proud! I want me! I want it all! I want sensational, irresistible! This is my time, and I am thrilled to be alive!" And he sounds it.


Smith suggested the title Collapse Into Now, which could be an answer to her heartbreaking memoir from last year, Just Kids. Except instead of scruffy young bohemians hustling to make it, it's a portrait of full-grown artists who reached the top long ago but decided to stick together and ride out the decades. You can hear a lot of shared history in the music, but you can also hear conflict, confusion, doubt — exactly the kind of recipe that R.E.M. thrive on. Just kids? That was the easy part.
The 15th studio album from R.E.M. finds the band at turns combative and mellow. The opening song, "Discoverer," could have been a bonus track on "Accelerate." It's all hard-driving guitars and that classic Stipe growl, with 10 of the dozen tracks coming in under four minutes.

All the Best.. the second track, challenges the younger generation.

The album then hits its stride with a quartet of contemplative songs: "ÜBerlin," "Oh My Heart," "It Happened Today" and "Every Day is Yours to Win." This is the R.E.M. mainstream audiences love. Stipe's lyrics are sung poetry over the top of Peter Buck's simple chords.

Track of "It Happened Today" features Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder backing up Stipe during the chorus before they together belt out a wordless harmony in a song that would be fun to see performed live.

The biggest misfire is the final track, "Blue." Patti Smith's guest vocal is mostly lost amid Stipe's monotone reading of a poem. Diehard R.E.M. fans may deconstruct it for meaning, but at more than five minutes it stops the momentum of an otherwise.

Alas, R.E.M. doesn't plan to tour behind this album.