High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Accelerate is the 14th studio album by the American alternative rock band R.E.M., released on March 31, 2008 in Europe, and on April 1 in North America. Produced with Jacknife Lee, Accelerate was intended as a departure from the 2004 album Around the Sun. R.E.M. previewed several of the album`s tracks during a five-night residency at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, and recorded the album in a nine-week schedule.