Rem - Reckoning
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Free Music Notes for Reckoning
Free Music Review: This--not "Murmur"--is R.E.M.'s finest hour.
Hit: 5 Stars
Well, here I go again, trying to get my "Reckoning" review past the prudes that police this site. Surely you guys have better things to do than edit my reviews.... Anyway, it is my opinion that "Reckoning"--with its jangling guitars, subdued vocals and oblique lyrics--truly stands as R.E.M.'s best album, bar none. (Sorry, guys, but it IS better than "Murmur"--which, let's face it already--suffers from some seriously awful production. What'd they do, record the thing with a Mr. Microphone?) There isn't a bad tune on "Reckoning", and "Harborcoat", "Don't Go Back to Rockville", "Pretty Persuasion" and "So. Central Rain" easily stand among the band's best work, EVER.
Go ahead, you can have your politcally correct, bald-headed, "I'm a genius, I'm a poet, maybe I'm gay, maybe I'm not" Michael Stipe--he's a pretentious ***. MY Michael Stipe is the one who launched and crafted an original and much-copied style of enduring, incredible, AMERICAN music. Viva "Reckoning"!
Free Music Review: best of the mid-80s
Hit: 5 Stars
This album is not the equal of R.E.M.'s first album, Murmur, but it comes damn close. Murmur was the more definitive artistic accomplishment. Reckoning is more frolicking, upbeat, and adventurous. This is R.E.M. after they were taken seriously but before they became superstars. The great songs on this disc have appeal from so many different angles. 7 Chinese Bros. is edgy and ominous. Time After Time and Camera are powerful and wistful. Letter Never Sent is mysterious. Don't Go Back To Rockville is playful with a touch of grateful nostalgia. Harborcoat, Pretty Persuasion, and Second Guessing are straightforward, quality pop. So. Central Rain is in a class by itself. The song that clinches this album's greatness is the underrated Little America. The last song on the CD, it sends the listener off with bouncing energy, urgency, and a touch of giddiness. It drives home the message "We're R.E.M. We are here to stay. There is much more to come. Thank you for indulging yourself in this musical masterpiece". The greatest recording act of the 1980s was thus born.Free Music Review: An album to be Reckoned with
Hit: 5 Stars
"Reckoning" is one of the top five R.E.M. albums in my opinion and probably my second favorite of the IRS years (behind "Document", and slightly edging out "Life's Rich Pageant"). Songs like "So. Central Rain", "Pretty Persuasion", and "(Don't Go Back) Rockville" are classics that you can listen to over and over.
While I am not one of those R.E.M. fans that only likes their early work, I do appreciate listening to the band play at a time when it was far less encumbered by the introspection and seriousness that have come with age. This album is a great one for getting a glimpse at that free-spirited, youthful time during the band's evolution to what it is today.
"Reckoning" is R.E.M's umpteenth great album but to those not familiar with R.E.M.'s early work, it may sound perhaps a bit unpolished and raw compared to the later albums released under the Warner Bros. label. Much like nascent cartoons or comics that look a bit different than they do in their later years, R.E.M.'s sound, though definitely still taking shape, is unmistakable.
Free Music Review: Time After Time After Time
Hit: 5 Stars
Going through midlife and assessing some of my music collection.
There is a feeling of my youth that swirls around the early-mid eighties that I can barely feel anymore, save for the catalyst of music. The anticipation of a new REM album was part of all that. After Murmur quite literally changed my musical life, the release of Reckoning was very exciting and lived up to expectations.
It was music that not only transformed me personally but the music scene as a whole.
REM is still around, and I am a longstanding fan. But now I feel a bit more awkward as a defender of the faith. Am I simply clouded by joyful memories of bygone years? I don't think so...I do have all the new stuff, too.
REM's side projects, social causes, befriending new bands seem to take the spotlight over new, meaningful music.
Nothing has taken the place of REM's IRS label years.
Thank you, Sally, for the memories, and giving me this lp for my 22nd birthday.
Free Music Review: Reckoning: R.E.M.'s Best Album
Hit: 5 Stars
While many listeners of R.E.M. argue passionately that "Murmur" is their best work, I respectfully disagree. "Reckoning" ranks as the best and most fully realized album R.E.M. ever produced and in my opinion is the best album to come out of a decade littered with the likes of Madonna and Michael Jackson, not to mention various glam rockers, hair bands, and pretentious English beat groups. The jangly 12 string playing of Peter Buck on songs such as "South Central Rain" and "Seven Chinese Brothers" are simple yet complex at the same time. Michael Stipe bares his soul on plaintive, muddy vocals with a beauty yet to be surpassed by any other vocalist. Simply put, this is an album of straight forward, unassuming and beautiful tunes crafted by one of the best rock bands of the last 20 years. If someone ever asks me to name only one album I could take to a desert island with me, "Reckoning" would definitely be that album.