R.E.M. - Every Day Is Yours To Win

Cover artwork:

Two contrasting reviwes of the album

At last! R.E.M. have come up with an album to compare with their 'greats' of the past. Brand loyalty can come at a price, and R.E.M. have tested my patience with a series of disappointing albums, 'Accelerate' promised much but in reality just offered 4 or 5 good tracks and some really poor tracks also. 

'Collapse Into Now' in many ways offers a similar style to 'Accelerate' but 12 of the 12 tracks hit the mark. I am not ready (yet!) to heap too much praise, but this could prove to be a truly great R.E.M. album. I guess my low expectations, might lead me to over state the quality of this album, but I need to go back to albums such as 'Up' and 'Reveal' to hear equivalent quality (and I hold both of these albums in very high esteem). 
What is particularly impressive about 'Collapse Into Now' is the combination between the gentle and the more rocky tracks. This album flows beautifully and will probably satisfy all R.E.M. fans who have stuck with them over the disappointments of recent years. 
So if you are hesitating in respect to this latest album, get out there now and buy your copy! 
PS: This was indeed the final R.E.M. album, at least they went out on a positive note!! 
Key Track: Uberlin

From: corkie at Rate Your Music

I'm beginning to think previewing most of this album online weeks, even months, before its release was an act of genius on R.E.M.'s part. For me, it meant that by the time Collapse Into Now was officially released into this die-hard fan's hands, I'd got past the need to constantly compare the songs to bits of the band's back catalogue (you know the kind of thing -- hey, this song sounds a bit like "Drive"! This song sounds a bit like "Crush With Eyeliner"! This song sounds a bit like "Losing My Religion!") and could appreciate it on its own terms. And heck, why shouldn't R.E.M. sound like its past selves? For all that Buck, Mills and Stipe have tried to wear their history lightly, the fact is they will still wear it. (As the old saw goes, "Be yourself -- nobody else is better qualified".) 

And the truth is, yes, this is minor R.E.M. I appreciate they wanted to diversify in sound a bit more than Accelerate, but in doing so they've lost focus and impact. And some of Michael Stipe's lyrics are surprisingly silly. There doesn't seem to be any overarching theme to the record, or even a reason for it to be apart from, well, it was time to make another album. So, let me be truthful and rate it 3 1/2 stars. 

But let me be even more truthful and say I love this album, in the same way I love Reckoning and Green and Up -- it's tuneful and daft and heartfelt and brash, it swaggers and it simpers, it has its tongue in its cheek and its hand on its heart. It is, as Peter Buck once famously described R.E.M. itself, "part lies, part heart, part truth and part garbage". It endears itself to me. It's like getting a big hug from an old friend you haven't seen in a while. 

And while great songs are thin on the ground, I'll make a big exception for "Blue" (as so often in the past, they save the best for last). And if this does turn out to be the last R.E.M. album, they couldn't find a better way to go out than with Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye along for the ride. Which does complete a kind of perfect circle, after all; Horses was the album that Stipe and Buck bonded over a mutual love of, and you can see the influence from "Radio Free Europe" on -- in a sense, Stipe and Buck are Smith and Kaye. 

Not a perfect band, but still my favourite band.

From: BradL at  Rate Your Music

Short Biography

R.E.M. marked the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock. When their first single, "Radio Free Europe," was released in 1981, it sparked a back-to-the-garage movement in the American underground. R.E.M. brought guitar pop back into the underground lexicon. Combining ringing guitar hooks with mumbled, cryptic lyrics and a D.I.Y. aesthetic borrowed from post-punk, the band simultaneously sounded traditional and modern. Though there were no overt innovations in their music, R.E.M. had an identity and sense of purpose that transformed the American underground. Throughout the '80s, they worked relentlessly, releasing records every year and touring constantly, playing both theaters and backwoods dives. Along the way, they inspired countless bands, from the legions of jangle pop groups in the mid-'80s to scores of alternative pop groups in the '90s, who admired their slow climb to stardom.
For 2011's Collapse into Now, the band favored a more expansive sound, one that combined Accelerate's rock songs, their previous album, with slower ballads and moody atmospherics. Reviews were mostly positive, and it debuted in the Top Five in America. Unexpectedly, in September 2011, the band announced its amicable breakup after 31 years together. Immediately after the split, the band issued a double disc compilation entitled, Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage: 1982-2011, covering both their years at IRS and Warner.

Record review

When I saw the video, I found it weird, because it showed different people doing random things or short videos of birds flying in a house or a cat. Also the quality isn't a good one, it seems to be all a webcam footage. But even if I found it weird I liked it, excatly because it was a video of different types of people doing random things. I think it has a poetic side, it has a charming side because it shows people doing curious things that maybe you hadn't seen before. Also, it has left me curious to know what happens next in some of the footage, like, for example, a guy who was painting himself in white and you never know what he is doing because you don't see it in full. 

I think that this song and video talks about every day's life and about how to live it, what you can do to live as much as you can by doing things that you like, and living by taking profit of everything around you. Because "every day is yours to win", you have to take profit of every day in whichever way you think is the best.

This video can be related to the four notions studied this year.
   It can be related to Myths and Heroes because this song is entitled "Every Day Is Yours to Win", it can be seen as if the day has to be conquered, which is what heroes do, so we could it refers to people calling them every days life heroes.
   It can be related to Science and Techniques as well as The Notion of Progress, because of the way the video is done. It is a mash up of different footages done by different people, and it seems a really innovative video clip. Also in the video we can see people doing things pretty worked on, which we can relate to Science and Techniques.
   It can be related to the Forms of Power because of the theme of the song, it kind of talks about the power of people in the Do It Yourself, and the power you have when you do things that you like for yourself.

 

Worksheet

iRack - MADtv

Positive Impact of New Technologies

This is a picture that shows the evolution of the prosthetic leg. Its heading says "Perfecting The Prosthetic Leg, how incremental innovation works for patients". It is from Eucomed, which is a company that represents the medical technology industry in Europe.

This picture shows the evolution of a prosthetic leg since 1800, we can see that it goes from wood to a much more modern material. And in between the oldest and the newest there are five more prototypes.

We can see that, in this case, technology has had a positive impact on medical assitance as this prosthetic leg that seems much more comfortable now than before. The continuous innovations that have been made throughout the years has enabled the prosthetic leg to imitate a real leg and its uses. For example, between the first prototypes, that is just a peg leg, and the next one, we can see that there is an articulation, like a knee, that appears. Also the materials of which the prosthetic legs are made have also changed to better and more comfortable ones. We see that little by little the prosthetic leg gets different elements such as a shoe, and it also takes more the form of a leg. The next two prototypes resemble each other except for the materials they are made of and the forms. The form of the second is more leg -like while the other has still the previous form. The next two, which were made after 1920, have tried to imitate as much as possible a real leg but the first one seems to have a less comfortable way of tying it to the leg than the next one, which just has the foot like a real one. The last and newest one is no longer an imitation of a leg but a tool that enables less-than-two-legged people to be able to get over their handicap.

Medical progress are above all done to make, in this case, the loss of a leg less harsh and it also helps to simplify the life of the patients. 

1. The technological progress of the prosthetic leg, nowadays, allows one-legged or none-legged people to walk like any two-legged person. Also thanks to these advances, sport games like "Special Olympics" exist, in which handicaped people can do almost any kind of sport competition. Thanks to the progress of medical technology the limitations of handicaps (not being able to walk, to run, to do sports,...) are being counteracted.