Collapse Into Now

Collapse into Now is the fifteenth and final studio album by the American alternative rock band R.E.M., released on March 7, 2011 on Warner Bros. Produced by Jacknife Lee, who has previously worked with the band on Accelerate (2008), the album was preceded by the singles, "Mine Smell Like Honey", "Ãœberlin" and "Oh My Heart". Regarding the album's title, vocalist Michael Stipe noted, "It's the final thing I sing, the last song on the record before the record goes into a coda and reprises the first song. In my head, it's like I'm addressing a nine-year-old and I'm saying, '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." As of September 2011, the album has sold 142,000 copies in the United States. Following the band's break-up, in September 2011, bassist Mike Mills noted that the album's lyrical content contained "indications" that the band were planning to split.