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NPR Streaming R.E.M.’s Live At The Olympia

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rem stipe NPR Streaming R.E.M.s Live At The Olympia

Next week (October 26) R.E.M. is releasing R.E.M. Live at the Olympia, which features two CDs worth of live recordings from the band’s five-show run at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, Ireland in 2007.

But! You can get a jump start on listening to the new R.E.M. courtesy of those music lovers over at NPR who are offering a free stream of the entire album here. Listen to the entire two-disc album, or just check out individual tracks.

What’s nice about the collection is that it doesn’t just settle for the obvious songs, the music you would almost expect to hear on an R.E.M. live album. There is no “Losing My Religion,” for example, which, I’m sure, a contingent of fans are saying ‘thank God!’

Instead, we get a terrific assortment of R.E.M. music that covers the band’s entire career, tunes that were not necessarily big hits (or even minor hits), but no less outstanding songs from the band’s amazing collection of music that dates back twenty-plus years; from “West of the Fields” and “Harborcoat” right there with “Drive,” “Circus Envy” and a newer track like “Living Well Is the Best Revenge.”

The initial goal of the Dublin gigs was to road test material that would eventually make their onto the album Accelerate, released in early 2008.

But it turned out to be something more than just a band working on new tunes. It was the past and the present colliding, a band that seemingly became re-energized by the creative process – helped along by the excitement of becoming reacquainted with sometimes overlooked gems (not by hardcore fans, of course) from their catalog, all the while shifting towards a new chapter in their career.

Writes NPR’s Guy Raz:

This is not a live album of greatest hits. It doesn’t really feel like a live album, either. It feels more like R.E.M.’s gift to its most diehard fans.

In other R.E.M. news, BeatCrave recently reported that all throughout October and November R.E.M. will be presenting a series of sneak preview screenings of the band’s concert documentary This Is Not A Show: Live at the Olympia in Dublin. The 60-minute film is part of R.E.M. Live At the Olympia CD/DVD package. The film is screening in movie theaters, rock clubs, college campuses, and other venues across the country. The film, which includes concert and backstage footage, was shot by French filmmakers Vincent Moon and Jeremiah.

R.E.M. Live at the Olympia Tracklist:

  • 01. Living Well Is the Best Revenge
  • 02. Second Guessing
  • 03. Letter Never Sent
  • 04. Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance
  • 05. Disturbance at the Heron House
  • 06. Mr. Richards
  • 07. Houston
  • 08. New Test Leper
  • 09. Cuyahoga
  • 10. Electrolite
  • 11. Man-Sized Wreath
  • 12. So. Central Rain
  • 13. On the Fly
  • 14. Maps and Legends
  • 15. Sitting Still
  • 16. Driver 8
  • 17. Horse to Water
  • 18. I’m Gonna DJ
  • 19. Circus Envy
  • 20. These Days
  • 21. Drive
  • 22. Feeling Gravity’s Pull
  • 23. Until the Day Is Done
  • 24. Accelerate
  • 25. Auctioneer
  • 26. Little America
  • 27. 1,000,000
  • 28. Disguised
  • 29. The Worst Joke Ever
  • 30. Welcome to the Occupation
  • 31. Carnival of Sorts
  • 32. Harborcoat
  • 33. Wolves, Lower
  • 34. I’ve Been High
  • 35. Kohoutek
  • 36. West of the Fields
  • 37. Pretty Persuasion
  • 38. Romance
  • 39. Gardening at Night

Might you stroll over to NPR this weekend to listen to the new R.E.M.?

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