Everybody Hurts...when they look at this

http://sqwink.com/news/2008/02/12/rem-supernatural-superserious-sleeveal...

This article hits the nail on the head. What is going on? It's easy to see that R.E.M. is the artist, and that the song title is Supernatural Superserious, and besides that it looks random and pointless. It does fit the song in a couple of ways.

One way is the typical R.E.M. stream of conscious style lyrics. There isn't a huge change in music and tone between the verses and the chorus for the song. This style can also be seen in Losing My Religion. Although I don't particularly like Supernatural Superserious, I do appreciate the deviation from the pop formula of having a distinct, catchy chorus. The beginning line is pretty lame, though. "Everybody here / Comes from somewhere." Pretty cliche.

I definitely agree with the author in saying that the cover for Accelerate is pretty awesome, and while the artwork for Supernatural Superserious uses the same style, it deviates in that the non-text part is ridiculous. It contains no concrete object that I can pick out, and is hardly interesting. Maybe it's a bike, but that might be stretching it.

One thing that the Accelerate cover reminds me of is the Beastie Boys. I can't figure out exactly made me think of that. I looked at some artwork for past Beastie Boys albums, and many are in black and white. Also To the 5 Burroughs has a similar city scene. I'm still trying to think of something that closely resembles the cover for Accelerate, so if something comes up I'll add to this post.