"This is my time, and I am thrilled to be alive."
"I come from a faraway place called the 20th century. And these are the values and these are the mistakes we've made and these are the triumphs. These are the things that we held in the highest esteem. These are the things to learn from."
—Michael Stipe, explaining the album's closing track.
Collapse into Now, released in 2011 through Warner (Bros.) Records, is the fifteenth and final studio album by American Alternative Rock band R.E.M.. While Accelerate was created as a way for the band to bounce back after a period of burnout, the group started to feel during its supporting tour that it was time to close the book for good. In an interview, Peter Buck further explained that the decision came after singer Michael Stipe expressed a desire to step away from R.E.M. for a long while. When Buck replied "how about forever," the trio all agreed that it sounded like a good idea: they realized that they'd done everything they ever wanted to as a band, and now was a perfect time to end things off on a high note instead of waiting for any Creative Differences or other discontent to drag them down.
With their second contract on Warner (Bros.) Records requiring one more album to be fulfilled, the band decided to take advantage of this obligation and make one final album to act as a Grand Finale for the story of R.E.M. Teaming back up with Accelerate producer Jacknife Lee, the band sought out a more diverse range of sounds on Collapse into Now rather than the front-to-back Punk Rock angle of its predecessor, exploring the various different angles they had taken with their music throughout their 31 years as a band and trading out the oftentimes politically charged lyricism of their 2008 record for more introspective, personal material, with hints littered throughout the album alluding to their impending dissolution. In essence, the album was R.E.M.'s way of looking back on everything they had done before giving one last goodbye to their fans and the wider public, acting as the culmination of all of their efforts.
Upon release, Collapse into Now was another commercial success for R.E.M., peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and topping the charts in Germany and Switzerland; it would later be certified gold in Italy and silver in the UK. Tying in with its status as a finale album, R.E.M. opted not to tour in support of it; the closest they got was a solo performance of "Every Day Is Yours to Win" by Michael Stipe at the 2011 Tibethouse Annual Benefit Concert.
Collapse into Now was supported by five singles: "It Happened Today", "Mine Smell Like Honey", "Überlin", "Oh My Heart", and "Discoverer".
Tracklist:
X-Axis- "Discoverer" (3:31)
- "All the Best" (2:48)
- "Überlin" (4:15)
- "Oh My Heart" (3:21)
- "It Happened Today" (3:49)
- "Every Day Is Yours to Win" (3:26)
Y-Axis
- "Mine Smell Like Honey" (3:13)
- "Walk It Back" (3:24)
- "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" (2:45)
- "That Someone Is You" (1:44)
- "Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I" (3:03)
- "Blue" (5:46)
We walk the streets, to feel the ground I'm troping:
- Album Closure: "Blue" features Michael Stipe reading a spoken-word poem ruminating on his and R.E.M.'s past, impact, and legacy, wrapping up the album's themes of conclusion and acting as the last word in the band's studio album discography.
- Album Title Drop: The album title is taken from Michael Stipe's final line on "Blue": "twentieth century, collapse, into now."
- Alliterative Title: "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter"
- And the Adventure Continues: The reprise of "Discoverer" at the very end of the album hints at this, noting that R.E.M. ending doesn't mean that there are no longer any new frontiers for the band members to explore. Peter Buck would go on to release two solo albums (a self-titled debut in 2012 and I Am Back to Blow Your Mind Once Again in 2014), while Michael Stipe would release his first post-R.E.M. solo single, "Your Capricious Soul", in 2019.
- Animated Music Video: "Discoverer", done with abstract computer-generated patterns.
- Book Ends: After the fadeout in "Blue", a brief reprise of the opening track, "Discoverer", plays before the album actually closes out.
- Buffy Speak: The opening of "It Happened Today" features Michael Stipe uttering the lines "this is not a parable/this is a terrible/a terrible... thing."
- Call-Back: In "Houston", Stipe sings "If the storm doesn't kill me, the government will." One album later, in the Sequel Song "Oh My Heart", Stipe sings, "The storm didn't kill me. The government changed." Of note is that Accelerate was released during the 2008 election, in the waning months of George W. Bush's heavily maligned final term as president, while Collapse into Now was released midway into Barack Obama's heavily praised first term as president.
- Color Motif: The band plays into their association with yellow for the final time here, with the album art prominently featuring angular yellow hatching as a visual element.
- Concept Album: Though it wasn't apparent until after their dissolution, Collapse into Now features overarching themes of finality and conclusion, tying in with the album's deliberate status as R.E.M.'s Grand Finale.
- "Double, Double" Title: "Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I".
- End of an Age: According to Michael Stipe, "Blue" is a rumination on the end of the 20th century (and by implication the end of R.E.M.), reflecting on the tumultuous past 100 years that humanity has endured and Passing the Torch to a new generation so that they can take charge of the 21st century. This is reflected in Stipe's final line in the song, "20th century collapse into now."
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The album named Collapse into Now is filled with hints towards the band's impending breakup.
- Face on the Cover: A black and white Anton Corbijn photograph of the band waving is featured on the front— knowing their breakup months later, it becomes more apparent that they're waving goodbye (which Michael Stipe explained was intentional).
- Foreshadowing: The album is rife with hints as to the band's impending breakup, right down to the cover art, which (as Michael Stipe explained in 2019) depicts the band waving goodbye.
- Genre Roulette: The album explores the wide variety of sounds the band used over their career, from the Accelerate-adjacent style of "Discoverer" and "All the Best" to the Pat McCarthy-era electro-jangle sound of "Überlin" to the Lifes Rich Pageant homage on "Mine Smell Like Honey"; even Around the Sun gets a nod with the slow, melancholic-sounding "Oh My Heart" (doubling as a lighter, less-heavy take on the arrangement for Accelerate's "Houston", to which "Oh My Heart" is a Sequel Song). Some songs even combine styles, with the closing track "Blue" mixing the Spoken Word in Music style of "Belong" with the Patti Smith duetting on "E-Bow the Letter".
- Grand Finale: The album was deliberately recorded with this in mind; it wasn't their last material period, that being the three bonus songs included on Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011 ("A Month of Saturdays", "We All Go Back to Where We Belong", and "Hallelujah"), but it was nonetheless intended as the climactic final note on them as a band.
- Hidden Track: "Blue" has a hidden reprise of the opening track "Discoverer" when the song ends.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: For the first time since Reveal a decade prior, and for the last time in their career, the band gives unique names to the two sides of their album, with LP copies dividing it between the "X-Axis" and the "Y-Axis", tying in with the angular style of the artwork.
- Large Ham: Fittingly for such a climactically conclusive record, "Discoverer" opens the album with Michael Stipe indulging in the impassioned delivery style that defined his singing since the late 80's.
- Lighter and Softer: The album moves away from the aggressive, politicized style of Accelerate and back towards introspective, jangly material, tying in with its status as the band's Grand Finale.
- Longest Song Goes Last: The album closes with "Blue", which clocks in at 5 minutes and 46 seconds.
- Loudness War: The album is marginally less compressed than Accelerate, but still comes in at a claustrophobic DR6.
- Lucky Charms Title: "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" unconventionally uses underscores in place of spaces, similarly to an old computer file.
- Lyric Video: "Überlin" received one in addition to the other Ordinary People's Music Video, focusing on the album version of the track rather than the single edit.
- Miniscule Rocking: "That Someone Is You" is just a quarter-minute shy from the two-minute mark.
- New Sound Album: Well, more "New Old Sound Album" in this case, but Collapse into Now moves away from the Punk Rock angle of Accelerate and back into the band's signature brand of Jangle Pop.
- The Oner: The music video for "Walk it Back" is made up of four of these shot on a phone. They are, in order, a woman dancing in a parking garage, a fly cleaning itself on a dinner menu, a horse pissing, and a fly laying eggs on a windowsill.
- One-Word Title: "Discoverer", "Überlin", "Blue"
- Ordinary People's Music Video: One of the two music videos for "Überlin" simply focuses on a regular guy (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) walking and dancing around the streets of Shoreditch, to the tune of the song's single edit.
- Painful Rhyme: Lampshaded on "It Happened Today":This is not a parable
This is a terrible
This is a terrible... thing
Yes I will rhyme that, after, after all I've done today
I have earned my wings - Portmantitle: "Überlin", mixing together the German word "über" (meaning "over") with the German capital, Berlin.
- Retraux: "Mine Smell Like Honey" was deliberately composed to sound like the band's late 80's material, with it specifically sharing the sound and structure of "These Days" off of Lifes Rich Pageant. The only giveaways regarding its real age are the Loudness War mastering and Stipe's Vocal Evolution in the 25 years since Lifes Rich Pageant released.
- Sequel Song: "Oh My Heart" is one to "Houston" from Accelerate. The former sounds like a more cheerful version of the latter, and includes a lyrical Call-Back with the line "the storm didn't kill me, the government changed."
- Shout-Out:
- "That Someone Is You" namedrops New Order, Young Marble Giants, Casino and its star, Sharon Stone, and the Scarface remake and its star, Al Pacino. Of note is that with the exception of Casino, all of these are relevant to the timeframe of 1980-1983 in some way or another: New Order formed in 1980 and released their first two albums in 1981 and 1983, Young Marble Giants released their sole single, EP, and album in 1980 before disbanding the following year, Sharon Stone's first four acting roles were in each of the years from 1980 to 1983, and the Scarface remake, which starred Al Pacino, released in 1983. This overarching timeframe directly corresponds to the period between R.E.M.'s formation and the release of their debut album, Murmur.
- Three guesses regarding "Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I".
- Patti Smith's final verse in "Blue" starts with the line "Cinderella boy, you've lost your shoe."
- Special Guest:
- "It Happened Today" features backing vocals from Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and Hidden Cameras frontman Joel Gibb.
- Canadian electroclash singer Peaches performs backing vocals on "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter".
- Patti Smith duets with Michael Stipe on the closing track, "Blue"; her longtime backing guitarist Lenny Kaye also performs guitar solos on both that song and "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter".
- Spoken Word in Music: "Blue" features a distorted recording of Stipe reading a poem while Patti Smith sings sporadically.
- Urine Trouble: Roughly a third of the video for "Walk It Back" is a single shot of a horse pissing in the street. A still of this is also used as the video thumbnail.
- Vocal Tag Team: Between Michael Stipe and Peaches on "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" and between Stipe and Patti Smith on "Blue".
