New Stipe solo track out this spring

Side Projects
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Nice article on Stipe’s participation in the Outsider Art Fair in the NYT.

From my perspective of course, the lede was buried:

He is also working on his first-ever solo album, for which he has been releasing songs on his website (the most recent, “No Time for Love Like Now,” is a collaboration with Aaron Dessner’s Big Red Machine; a new track, “We Are Who We Were, Who We Will Be (My Body’s Not Dancing),” will be out this spring.

I’ve really enjoyed his solo stuff so far, so colour me very excited (and impatient).

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I’m dying for a Michael Stipe solo album!

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New song, Future if Future, a collaboration with Brian Eno, is coming out for Earth Day. More here: ‘Capitalism didn’t understand community’: Brian Eno steps up the climate crisis battle | Brian Eno | The Guardian

I think Michael Stipe might have released a snippet of this song a while back. The title sounds familiar.

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Thought so:

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Great news - always thought that sounded promising.

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I’m glad this is finally being released. I’ve been looking forward to it. The lyrics are included in his second photo album. “Our Interference Times.”

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Future, If Future is out and it’s a banger Michael Stipe - Future, If Future | EarthPercent

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Thank you! Great to hear new music from Michael.

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That’s an, err, interesting arrangement :wink:

We’ll see how it grows on me.

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Thoughts on the track?

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To be honest, I’ve only really liked No Time For Love Right Now (loved it) out of his solo endeavours. This track falls into the other camp for me. The camp that sounds like someone’s pressed a demo button on a Casio keyboard. Not my thing.

Interesting melody though and always nice to hear his voice on new stuff.

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I’ve enjoyed the more electronic incursions. “Drive to the Ocean” is my favourite of his solo releases so far. The choice of musical backing here is a little baffling to me, though, I guess it must be intentionally abrasive.

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It took me by surprise at first. But I’ve really warmed to it. That insistent hard beep that keeps coming in took a little bit of getting used to. Not one for a hangover.

I absolutely love the drum break after “doing all we can”. The vocal is fantastic as expected. Overall I’m into it and excited to hear more.

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My thoughts? I can’t believe anyone involved in this thought this should be released into the world. It’s absolutely terrible and sort of feels like a joke.

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That said, it’s so bad that it’s really funny and kind of hard to stop listening to.

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Yeah, just like every bit of all their individual solo outputs (Buck’s, Mills’s and Stipe’s), it’s just not good at all, and I’m sorry to feel that way. I want to like their stuff, of course.

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Michael sounds great, to me it’s like a battle between Michael’s voice and those repetitive electronic beep noises. I’m thinking it as representative of the future & how modern technology is intruding into our lives. I have a generic ring tone on my mobile phone, when it goes off too much and I’m busy I want to grab it and smash is against the wall.

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It’s not super-great but I’m assuming that it’s sort of an outtake from the future Lp and that “We Are Who We Were, Who We Will Be” will be much better…

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Reminds me of “No Time for Love”. I like Michael with electronica. I think way back in the catacombs of Murmurs, I wished Michael would do a song with Massive Attack.

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Generally agree, but Buck’s collaborative efforts are all pretty good!

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