New REM live album released

R.E.M. has released its new concert set, Live At Olympia, featuring tracks from a five-night stand in Dublin, Ireland in 2007. The 39-track set is available as both a double-CD and as a CD/DVD combo -- complete with concert and backstage footage. At the concerts, R.E.M. previewed music from its 2008 critically-acclaimed Accelerate album. The set also includes two new songs not included on Accelerate -- "On the Fly" and "Staring Down The Barrel Of The Middle Distance."

Live At Olympia marks R.E.M.'s second official live album. The first, which came out in 2007, was recorded in Dublin as well. Guitarist Peter Buck tells us the group has grown used to being more popular overseas than in the U.S. in recent years: [ Click to listen if you have a backstage pass] "Outside of America we're more popular than we've ever been. And, you know, it's like being the Beatles in Italy or Ireland or England, and it's really intense and really fun and really cool."

A 60-minute documentary film of R.E.M.'s same concert run in Ireland, called This Is Not A Show: Live at the Olympia in Dublin, is playing in select towns across the US through November 5th.