Side One (pardon this out-moded expression) was one of the best LP sides ever. The sound of "Reckoning" was more driving and slightly more electric than it's folk-tinged predecessor, "Murmur". The vocals were rarely decipherable, but one could extract occassional nuggets ("Your handshake is worthy, it's all that you've got"..."The wiseman builds his house upon the rock, but I'm not bound to follow suit"..."Goddamn your confusion"..."pull your dress on, and stay real close"). These little chestnuts somehow seemed and felt important at the time. Never enough to hang one's hat on, but enough to conjure intrigue.

Side Two yielded "Letter Never Sent", which is still at the top of my favorite R.E.M. songlist. Other highlights included "Second Guessing" and "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville".

While R.E.M. continued to create occassional moments of brilliance ("Maps & Legends", "Flowers of Guatemala", "Me in Honey", and "Man on the Moon"), their music yielded diminishing returns from this point forward. Peter Buck abandoned the gorgeous sweep of the clean arpeggio jangle of his Rickenbacker for power chords and distortion. At the time I grieved and lamented this loss, but after 20 years I realize that the sound I loved HAD to change. It was the product of its time and the age of its creators. And somehow the fact that R.E.M. and I went down different paths after 1984 lends a bittersweet pathos to "Reckoning".

"Reckoning" is one for the ages. And the embarrassment of Michael Stipe circa 2003 does not diminish its beauty. Highly recommended.


This--not "Murmur"--is R.E.M.'s finest hour.   February 9, 1999
 22 out of 31 found this review helpful

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"!


Vacation in Athens is calling you   June 9, 2001
 21 out of 23 found this review helpful

In all the years I've been listening to this CD (and I listened to it a lot today as well), I find that my favorite song of this album keeps changing. Rockville. Harborcoat. Time after Time (I'm naming my first daughter AnnElise). Today, though, it's Letter Never Sent.

Dammit, each song on this CD is totally different than the next, and just about every one of them deserves to be a hit.

Ranked against my favorite REM albums, it's hard to not put this one at the top. Fables, Murmur, Life's Rich Pageant...they are all great. I don't know if it's my favorite REM album, but I know that I wouldn't want to live the rest of my life without this masterpiece. I guess the main point is, if you enjoy Life's Rich or Murmur or any other REM album, you will definitely LOVE Reckoning.

Now if you'll excuse me, vacation in Athens is calling me. Buy Reckoning today. Don't waste another year.


Reckoning and a Boss of Root Beer   January 16, 2003
 18 out of 29 found this review helpful

It was junior year of high school and Chris and I were among the invitees to a soiree at our friend Cynthia's house. Ever the thoughtful guests, we swung by Farm Fresh to pick up a boss of Hires root beer on our way. R.E.M.'s Reckoning album blared from the speakers of Chris' beige Ford Escort. "Seven Chinese Brothers swallowing the ocean (or something to that effect)", Michael Stipe sang as Chris and I shouted at each other over top of the music.

By the time we arrived at Cynthia's house we were only up to "Pretty Persuasion", about 1/3 of the way through the tape, and were already pretty hoarse. I don't know why we always played the music so loud, yet still valiantly tried to carry on conversations over top of it. We parked next to the mailbox by Cynthia's driveway but there was no way either of us were leaving that car until Reckoning was over. During the lull that is "Time After Time (Annelise)", we could no longer resist opening the root beer. We were going to need to fortify ourselves for side 2 of the tape. Without an alternative drinking apparatus, we took turns imbibing root beer straight from the boss.

"Why you trying to second guess me?" Yeah, things were starting to pick up again when suddenly I was startled by a knock on the passenger's side window. I turned to face the source of the noise and saw none other than Alan, Cynthia's older brother, standing impatiently next to the car. I rolled down the window to let him air whatever grievance he might have against us.

"What are you guys doing out here? Everyone is already inside getting ready to eat." Hair moussed and gelled to perfection and decked out in his finest 80s skinny tie regalia, Alan wasn't exactly a frightening authority figure even if he was a year older than us.

"Alan, do you realize what we are listening to?" I asked as nicely as possible, "Do you really want us to interrupt this?" I increased the volume a bit more for his sake.

"Care for some root beer?", Chris queried, politely extending the already half-empty boss towards Alan.

"No thank you" declined Alan as a look of understanding came over his face, "Hey, that's Reckoning. Excellent choice."

At least there was something the three of us could agree on. "When should I tell Cynthia to expect you?" Alan asked.

"When the album's over."

"Naturally. Very well then. Sorry to have troubled you."

Alan was all right. Once in the halls of our high school, David Jones accused Alan of hauling around a 5-pound bag of sugar in his back pocket, but even if Alan was transporting that much sugar to school with him each day, was it really anyone's business but his own? Maybe the guy had a sweet tooth, maybe he didn't. Big deal. It's really none of our concern. But just in case you can't stop thinking about it, here's a little clue for you - Alan ended up marrying his female English professor at Virginia Tech just a few years later. Even David Jones would have to admit it takes some pretty staunch heterosexuality to pull off something like that.

The boss was about empty by the time we got to "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville", a song so catchy even our friend, Kristen, who hated R.E.M. once admitted she couldn't resist it. With both the boss and Reckoning approaching their ends, Chris and I realized we'd have to venture inside for dinner soon.

Sadly, I can't recall what Cynthia served us that night or even whether it was any good. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been as good as Reckoning or that boss of Hires - I remember those beauties only too well.


why, WHY did they give it up??   November 17, 2004
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

There's basically two kinds of REM fans. People who got into the post-Green material, and know them as a big-league stadium rock band, and those who appreciate their earlier indie material on the IRS label. Well, you guessed it, I'm on the IRS side of things. The only post-Document album of theirs which I actually own is "New Adventures in Hi-Fi," which is not nearly as good as the early work. I frankly don't understand why they gave up this sound at all. They had so much potential here. AARRGGHH!! Well, no use dwelling on it.

I can't begin to describe how great this album is. I first bought it when I was in high school, on cassette, a decade after it was recorded. I updated to a CD copy about five years later. It's only sounded better over that period of time. It has that raw, jangly, murky feel that REM was so good at back then, with abstract lyrics hinting at something big but never giving everything away. It's less staid-sounding than Murmur, but keeps that mysterious feeling that was lost when Mike Stipe became a regular old frontman and started demanding attention and wearing his heart on his sleeve. The whole murky-mumbly thing suited him and the band far better than anything. It is my favorite album of the 80s, even with competition from the Stone Roses, the Pixies, the Replacements, the Clash and Jesus and Mary Chain. It's also a huge influence on one of my favorite songwriters, Stephen Malkmus. So, if you're looking for everything that indie rock can be, look no further.

-HW