Maps of Music

Reckoning (1984)

Where the lyrics of Reckoning take you, and where it was really made.

The studio diary listed 16 days of recording, the sleeve claimed 14, and Buck sometimes said 11.

Key places

Where Reckoning was recorded (1983)

Recording site Reflection Sound Studios — R.E.M. started recording Reckoning here on December 8, 1983. The sessions ran in two eight-day stretches, and the studio diary listed 16 days of recording. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Reckoning: second studio album by the American alternative rock band R.E.M.
• Also titled File Under Water
• Released April 9, 1984 in the UK and April 17 in the US, on I.R.S. Records
• Produced by Mitch Easter and Don Dixon
• Recorded at Reflection Sound Studios in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Lead singer Michael Stipe wrote darker lyrics, and water imagery recurs across the album

Background

• Follows the debut album Murmur (1983), which had received critical acclaim
• The band wrote new material prolifically, mostly in Mike Mills' living room on Barber Street in Athens, Georgia
• Peter Buck unsuccessfully pushed for the next release to be a double album
• In November 1983 the band recorded 22 songs in a session with Neil Young producer Elliot Mazer in San Francisco
• Mazer was briefly considered as producer, but R.E.M. chose Easter and Dixon again
• The band's 1983 tour schedule left Stipe particularly worn out during the sessions

Recording

• Recording began on December 8, 1983, over two eight-day stretches
• Two weeks of canceled studio time separated the stretches, which allowed a Greensboro show and a studio video shoot
• Studio diary listed 16 days, the album sleeve claimed 14, and Buck sometimes said 11
• Dixon said the sessions lasted over 25 days; Easter said 20
• Dixon used binaural recording extensively on the album
• Dixon made a fake binaural head from a cardboard box with two microphones inside
• Stipe sang so quietly on 7 Chinese Bros. that Dixon handed him a gospel record
• Stipe then began reciting the liner notes aloud, a take later released as Voice of Harold

Cover

• Stipe drew a two-headed snake, and artist Howard Finster painted it
• The spine of the vinyl reads File Under Water
• Stipe told NME that this phrase is the true title of the record

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe, all University of Georgia students
• Released the single "Radio Free Europe" in 1981 on the independent label Hib-Tone
• Signed with I.R.S. Records in 1982

Members

• Michael Stipe (lead vocals), Peter Buck (guitar), Mike Mills (bass, vocals), Bill Berry (drums) until 1997
• Bill Rieflin served as touring drummer from 2003 until his death in 2020

Career

• Breakthrough hit "The One I Love" in 1987 from Document; signed with Warner Bros. in 1988
• Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992) made them leaders of alternative rock
• Continued as a trio after Berry left in 1997
• Broke up in 2011 after selling more than 90 million albums worldwide
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2024

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Rolling Stone gave the album four out of five stars
• Reviewer Christopher Connelly said the overall sound was crisper and the lyrics far more comprehensible than on Murmur
• Connelly felt Stipe's erratic meanderings would keep the band from transcending cult status
• Joe Sasfy of The Washington Post said the songs trump even Murmur's outstanding songwriting
• NME reviewer Mat Snow called the album another classic and said it confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet

Reappraisal

• Slant Magazine listed the album at number 81 on its list of Best Albums of the 1980s

Records

• Peaked at number 27 on the Billboard 200 within a month of release and stayed on the chart for nearly a year
• First single So. Central Rain reached number 85 on the Billboard Hot 100
• Second single Rockville did not chart
• Peaked at number 91 in the United Kingdom
• Certified gold by the RIAA in 1991 (500,000 copies shipped)
• Placed seventh in NME's Best Album of the Year critics' poll
• Ranked sixth in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Left of Reckoning, a short film made to accompany the first half of the album, was shot in March 1984 at R.A. Miller's Whirligig Farm in Rabbittown, Georgia
• The film was directed by Athens filmmaker James Herbert, and the film consists primarily of footage of the band members wandering around the farm
• Voice of Harold, Stipe's recitation of the liner notes, was first released as a B-side to So. Central Rain
• Pretty Persuasion and Rockville had been played live since October 1980
• Rockville was rearranged with a country rock influence as a tribute to legal advisor Bertis Downs IV, a country music fan
• The band wanted to release Rockville as a non-album single before recording it for the album

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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