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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The 1984 follow-up to R.E.M.'s brilliantly murky debut features Michael Stipe's ambiguous moan, drummer Bill Berry's strong backbeat, and guitarist Peter Buck's endless wave of catchy, jangling riffs. They wouldn't fully beef up their hard rock until roughly 1986's Life's Rich Pageant, but the swimming melodies of "Pretty Persuasion," "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" and "Rockville (Don't Go Back To)" recall why the band frequently earned comparisons to a power-pop Beatles and the country-rock Byrds. Also, the jittery rhythms and deceptively simple guitar lines make the underappreciated "Harborcoat" and "7 Chinese Bros." worth revisiting. --Steve Knopper
Product Description
Mid-priced reissue of the foreign edition of their 1984 & second album with five bonus tracks added, 'WinD OuT (With Friends)', 'Pretty Persuasion' (Live In Studio), 'White Tornado' (Live In Studio), 'Tighten Up' and 'Moon River'. 15 tracks total, also featuring the chart hit 'So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)' and the college radio anthems 'Pretty Persuasion', '(Don't Go Back To) Rockville' and 'Time After Time (Annelise)'. 'Reckoning' reached #27 in the U.S. 1992 release.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful
By E. Lambeth
Format:Audio CD
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.
26 of 28 people found the following review helpful
By Howlinw
Format:Audio CD
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
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
43 of 50 people found the following review helpful
By Dale Chapman
Format:Audio CD
R.E.M. broke onto the scene with "Chronic Town" when I was a sophomore in high school in 1982. Prior to this time, I was "into" the mainstream hard rock of the day (Van Halen, Aldo Nova, Huey Lewis, Rush, Men at Work, etc.). R.E.M gave me an individualistic retreat amidst the pressure of adolescent conformity. In this period prior to adulthood, I was able to invest R.E.M.'s music with my own innocence, naivete, and sense of mystery. The band's initial EP ("Chronic Town") and first two LPs ("Murmur" & "Reckoning") seemed to beg the listener down this path. The music suggested a growing youth movement that embraced kindness, creativity, and commeraderie.
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.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Big bass restored on this amazing MFSL CD
Apparently this is the way the band had wanted the mix: bass-y. Even though I knew this, I was still a little struck by its intensity. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Geee!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Aah, The Glory Days...
Few bands say college in the '80s like R.E.M. I had "And I Feel Fine...", one of the greatest hits albums, but there were too many classic songs from "Reckoning" left off of that... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Jose O. Calderon
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rivers Of Suggestion
Sounding an almost universally wistful note, the plaintive warbling of a lead vocalist who resembled a young, long and curly-haired version of oddball actor Michael Pollard was... Read more
Published 16 months ago by kabalabonga
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic REM Masterpiece!
One of the best of the IRS releases. And if you know about there IRS years you will know this must be good!
Published 21 months ago by jonathan brailsford
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's still got it!
People's opinions are so subjective, it's fun isn't it? For me this is their best album by far and stands as one of my favourite albums of all time even though I am not a huge REM... Read more
Published on October 21, 2010 by cookstar
3.0 out of 5 stars
Didn't wear as well as I thought it would
I know I'm in the minority, but this is my least favorite early R.E.M. album. I still adore Pretty Persuasion, Letter Never Sent, and especially Harborcoat. Read more
Published on June 25, 2010 by E. Fidler
5.0 out of 5 stars
Half classic, half meh
R.E.M.
Reckoning; 1984
IRS Records
My Rating: 8/10
RECKONING was REM's quick follow-up to their debut. Read more
Reckoning; 1984
IRS Records
My Rating: 8/10
RECKONING was REM's quick follow-up to their debut. Read more
Published on August 5, 2009 by John Carswell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reckon this is excellent.
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... Read more
Published on November 28, 2008 by DjC
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't waste another year
The second album from R.E.M.'s IRS years was a logical step forward from the stunning Murmur. Touring incessantly had stripped the band of some of their murky atmospherics, towards... Read more
Published on November 21, 2008 by Tim Brough
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Chemistry, Great Album
This album was another great release in the same style as Murmur. R.E.M. at this point had established themselves in the music circuit with their jangly Rickenbacher guitars along... Read more
Published on April 21, 2008 by Maggie Mae
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