Rem - Reckoning
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Free Music Notes for Reckoning
Free Music Review: "a vacation in Athens is calling me"
Hit: 5 Stars
Pavement wrote an ode to this album on the AIDS benefit CD No Alternative called "The Unseen Power of the Picket Fence" (" `Time After Time' was my least favorite song"). Actually my least favorite song on this 1984 release is "Second Guessing" followed by "Harborcoat." The rest of the album is very solid, not as amazing as the next release Fables of the Reconstruction, but close. The best track is definitely the fanny-kickin' "Pretty Persuasion." This is an addictive rocker and always finds its way on my R.E.M. compilation tapes. Other highlights include the beautiful (although a little lengthy) ballad "Camera" sporting some of Michael Stipe's best vocal work; the fun, countrified tune "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" and "Letter Never Sent" with the excellent use of backing vocals. "7 Chinese Bros." is another addictive song. I find myself humming it out of the blue. It ends with the upbeat "Little America." Reckoning is a very solid early release by the boys from Athens, Georgia. In my opinion, their best album was yet to come: the 1985 release Fables of the Reconstruction. Reckoning is a nice precursor to that album.Free Music Review: Rivers of Suggestions
Hit: 5 Stars
There is so much beautiful emotion of yearning and longing, so much evocative imagery, and so many wonderous innovative ideas conjured throughout this album, that one can almost forget that the band even sound like they're having FUN (credit to the soulful production for that, maybe). It's amazing that I can still listen to it regularly (first purchased on cassette way back in '84 alongside Elvis Costello's Armed Forces and - yeesh! - Van Halen's 1984, both long forgotten) and still find new things in it. I will forever be baffled by Peter Buck's assertions that Murmur or Automatic For the People are conceptually unified pieces and this is just a collection of songs. Just goes to show artists are frequently too close to their creation and sometimes don't have the perspective to really see what they've got. Get it on the Mobile Fidelity version, not just for the superior sound quality, but also the bizarre jam that existed on the LP and somehow was unforgiveably forgotten when transferred to CD. It may only last about 10 seconds, but - and I know this sounds weird - the album just ain't complete without it.Free Music Review: RIVERS OF SUGGESTIONS
Hit: 5 Stars
There is so much beautiful emotion of yearning and longing, so much evocative imagery, and so many wonderous innovative ideas conjured throughout this album, that one can almost forget that the band even sound like they're having FUN (credit to the soulful production for that, maybe). It's amazing that I can still listen to it regularly (first purchased on cassette way back in '84 alongside Elvis Costello's Armed Forces and - yeesh! - Van Halen's 1984, both long forgotten) and still find new things in it. I will forever be baffled by Peter Buck's assertions that Murmur or Automatic For the People are conceptually unified pieces and this is just a collection of songs. Just goes to show artists are frequently too close to their creation and sometimes don't have the perspective to really see what they've got. Get it on the Mobile Fidelity version, not just for the superior sound quality, but also the bizarre jam that existed on the LP and somehow was unforgiveably forgotten when transferred to CD. It may only last about 10 seconds, but - and I know this sounds weird - the album just ain't complete without it.Free Music Review: Reckon this is excellent.
Hit: 5 Stars
Compared to the murky, modern sound of Murmur, this, R.E.M.'s second album, was a more straight-forward approach, something of a folk rock album with its jangly guitar-driven sound. Just as with Murmur, the lyrics draw repeated listening to fathom their meaning, as with "7 Chinese Brothers" (..."Seven Chinese brothers swallowing the ocean..."), and they inspire, as with "Letter Never Sent" (..."Heaven is yours, heaven is yours, heaven is yours where I may live...". But the lyrics are more focused, some like stories, even with a little country thrown in, as in "So. Central Rain" and "Don't Go Back to Rockville," which perhaps hinted at the direction of the next album, "Fables of the Reconstruction." Stipe's delivery is still understated, not the clearly enunciated rendering that would begin with the album Document, but it's part of what made the songs in this early period so enigmatic--I almost wish they would go back to that style yet still somehow make it new.
Just about all the songs are great, and the three or four that aren't great are still quite good.
Do not miss it.
Free Music Review: This was R.E.M. at their peak
Hit: 5 Stars
I can't for the life of me figure out why Automatic For The People is considered to be the band's best. I simply CANNOT listen to "Man On The Moon" even ONE more time. Incredibly annoying song. I hate the lethargic verse with yeah yeah yeah yeah at the end of every line. Hate the stupid chorus. Hate the whiny voice (which is so distressingly common now -- boy has Stipe's singing style changed for the worse).You will find none of that here. This stuff is why R.E.M. was my favorite band for eight years, from '80-'87. Moody and varied, with timeless melodies and an atmosphere to die for. Not quite the equal of Murmur's atmosphere (which is perfectly evoked visually by the mysterious kudzu weed picture on the cover), but Reckoning comes very close.
I would rank R.E.M's albums like this: 1. Murmur 2. Reckoning 3. Fables of the Reconstruction 4. Dead Letter Office 5. Lifes Rich Pageant 6. Document 7. Green 8. Automatic For The People 9. Out Of Time 10. New Adventures in Hi-Fi 11. Monster 12. Up 13. Reveal
Yep, things have been really going downhill. Oh well.