Hyping Like It's 1996

Are these geezers still rockstars? We'll know tomorrow.

R.E.M. takes a shot at a more-rockin'-than-the-last-three comeback album. The U2 comparisons are somewhat unfair, even though, back in the day, all us music industry analysts wrote endlessly on their potential sell out to Warner Music for $80 million. Those were the days, huh?

Lately, R.E.M. have been playing at SXSW, and streaming the album on iLike, but only hosting a clip on MySpace. That, and doing interviews with NPR. Possibly, that's wise, given their audience and iLike's Facebook presence.

Photo swiped from the Boston Globe. Confession: I didn't hate their last album, even though everybody else did.