Rem - Reckoning

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Music reviews of Reckoning

Music Review: Don't Go Back to Murmur
Rating: 4 Stars

Okay, first of all, this is a good collection of tunes. Everybody plays and sings well. The sound is quite distinctive, most importantly because the instruments and vocals dance around each other in such an unusual way. For instance, if memory serves, there's exactly four seconds worth of harmonica on the whole record, but it's in exactly the right place - it kicks one of the fast numbers into high gear just before the vocal starts.

As for the vocals themselves - well, a lot of critics declared in 1984 that R.E.M. was really an instrumental group and that Michael Stipe's voice was really the lead instrument. It's tempting to think that he read those critics and decided to emphasize the trait, because on _Reckoning_ he does a tremendous amount of singing without words. Fortunately, the man does have a good baritone voice (unlike some singers who insist on injecting vocal pyrotechnics irritating enough to sterilize cats). The backup singers are particularly effective, too, especially Mike Mills - his voice has a kind of soaring innocence to it that blends quite well with Stipe's moaning world-weariness.

In short, the record sounds good. The only problem is that it doesn't hang together as a whole very well.

Granted, Mitch Easter's production gives all the numbers a similar sound, with plenty of air between the instruments, like each song was recorded in a dirt-floored wooden shack out in the forest somewhere. Granted too, a lot of the lyrics (what you can understand of them) have a connected theme; something about loss and uncertainty, with lines floating around on the order of "Seven thousand ways to sweep away the pain," "Are you obligated to follow," "Can't go outside without it," and the chorus to "So. Central Rain," which is the single word "Sorry."

Granted all that, there's still something about this record that strikes me as a collection of ten small pieces of work instead of one big one. This is partly because _Reckoning_ includes a couple of attempts at hit singles, the grief-stricken "So. Central Rain" and the surprisingly standard C&W-flavored "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville." There's nothing shameful in that, of course, and it wouldn't be worth mentioning except that the band was clearly trying to duplicate the triumph of _Murmur_ and fell a little short. _Now_ it's time to compare the two records.

Like the previous disk, _Reckoning_ sets up an aura of mystery around the participants and goes for a deliberately amateurish-looking graphic design. Like the previous disk, this one has a snippet of instrumental improvisation - this time is a couple of seconds of very awkward-sounding funk that lands on the ear with a dull thud. Like the previous disk, this one emphasizes the interplay of vocal, guitar, bass and drums, with a few surprises tossed in for good measure. R.E.M. were copying themselves, and although it produced a lot of good music it ultimately didn't work. Copying rarely does, as anyone who has ever listened to those completely interchangeable corporate-rock plastic puppets can tell.

To their everlasting credit, R.E.M. realized this at once. A story is told that at a concert about this time, they realized that all the songs sounded exactly the same as they had for weeks. So they threw out their set list, played a selection of covers that they had never rehearsed and nearly started a riot. The next year they headed off to London of all places to get a breath of fresh air. Some time passed before they got their bearings back, but eventually the shakeup proved to be well worth it.

Benshlomo says, However much it hurts, try something new once in a while.

Description of Reckoning

Alternative Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock