#4 R.E.M. – Reckoning
Reckoning. The title suggests it all. R.E.M.’s second full length album is a departure both in sound and mystique. It is a more straight-forward southern rock record, without the overdubs, the studio work and extras that made Murmur such a unique record when it was released. Instead the band focused on a more live sound, completing the album in about two weeks with the same team of Mitch Easter and Don Dixon.
For me, it was the album that started the madness. I remember listening to the opening chords to Seven Chinese Bros.; “Seven Chinese brothers swallowing the ocean”, a bastardized reflection on a children’s book, the 5 Chinese Brothers, where one of them has the unique ability to swallow the ocean which brings us to the theme of the record. . . “File Under Water”.
Reckoning was the album that resonated. This strips it bare and sounds more straightforward rock although if you compare it to music today, you could say that it was one of the first “Alt-Country” albums.
I seem to remember Peter Buck railing against the idea of writing songs about being on the road, but the album itself always felt like it held a bit of Americana with it. On a recent road trip, I loaded the iPod mix I created with this album and the moments passing through Kansas or Nebraska did not seem so mundane.
There was also something very southern about the album and helped redefine southern rock as something that didn’t sound like Lynrd Skynrd. Remember that R.E.M. came out of an Athens scene that was more noted for it’s crazy new wave dance sounds such as the B-52s. This album if anything is farthest from it and in my opinion truly breaks the band away from the Athens scene and allows them to stand on their own two feet without the weight of the sleepy college town.
As I have grown more gray hairs, the song that I have adopted has to be So. Central Rain, which would probably go down as my favorite song if not for it’s flexibility and sincerity. I have always thought that So. Central Rain was the perfect pop song, the use of water i.e. “Rivers of Suggestion” to explain a poignant moment in a relationship. On the other end it, suggests that the song is just about a natural calamity such as a hurricane. I remember thinking about the song after Hurricane Sandy and thinking it became that perfect moment for me when thinking about the destruction that the storm caused.
The album following the breakout release is the difficult one and what R.E.M. was able to do was create an essential album. It speaks to the influence the band had on 80’s rock and it’s importance when the UK was getting all the notice.