@@avenueb We're slicing hairs. At certain times any of their first four could be my favorite. With the exception of Murmur. It's great, but doesn't grab me like the next three.
Fables is #5 favorite album in my life. But to me ANY album from their I.R.S. years is top of the line. I even enjoy Dead Letter Office because they were just having a good time with that one.
Nope...Those are both great albums. However, Document #5 , is Easily their best album. Welcome to the Occupation, End of the World ( as we know it), One I Love, King of birds, Etc....There isn't a Bad song on the album. And Soooo many GREAT ones. Second would probably be Automatic for the People, or Out of Time, both absolutely Mammoth albums.
@@sambeaty5637 How are they underrated? They sold like 100 million albums. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract ever.
This is am amazing song from an amazing album. Thirty four years after its release, it still retains its strength and beauty. This is why the college rock of the early 80s evolved into the alternative rock of the next 20 years, and the indie rock of today.
This is THE Song that got Me into R.E.M. after I heard it on the 📻 in 85'. That part where the band goes into overdrive 2:19- 2:35 is so AWESOME! Pete Buck's Jangly Guitar is so Mesmerizing!!!!
My favorite band. This was such an important song for me. I was 15 when I heard it. At this point in my life I was trying to figure out who I was, so to speak. One way of defining myself was to look at what music would I pick. I liked many types of music, but none of them I would say completely described who I was as a person. Then one day I heard "Pretty Persuasion" for the first time. I started hearing other REM songs from that era, and I thought This is who I am.
I lived in Athens when REM was coming up. Even before they released their first single. This song was a staple of their live shows and all us REM-followers were shocked it was not on Murmur. And then thrilled to see it on Reckoning. One of my favorite REM songs.
I heard the earliest cassette recording of an R.E.M. show, recorded long before Murmur was released, and pretty much all the staples of Reckoning were already in place. With Murmur, I think they were concerned with creating a collection of songs that hung together as a piece, and all their 'party band' songs spilled over into Reckoning.
Yeah I remember it from Tyrones in 1981. They used to play Rockville at Tyrones too. It was like a punk rock song. When we first heard it on Reckoning we couldn't believe how slow and country it sounded.
It is hard to now describe how completely different this video was from everything else at that time. Simultaneously sound and look of the past and future.
yep - This is one of many great R.E.M songs - my other favorites are: WE WALK, Wolves Lower, Carnival or sorts, SITTING STILL, Laughing, Harbor Coat, Maps and Legends, Green Grow Rushes Grow, I BELIEVE, What if we give it away, Begin the Begin, Ages of You, Exhuming McCarthy, Finest Working, Texarkana, Stand, Man on the moon, EVERYBODY HURTS, IMITATION OF LIFE, Whats the frequency Kenneth and superman
Agreed. They made lots of good music, but I fell in love with this one and never looked back. Still an amazing song. Love the live videos, too. Peter Buck in particular was a Part In a Box all by his own bad self!
First REM song I ever heard. I was in college sitting in a local bar in the afternoon with some classmates when this came up on the bar's video screen. I had heard of REM, and everything I'd heard was good, but had never heard any of their music, so I decided to pay attention while everyone around me kept talking and drinking. I was hooked before the song was halfway over, and I still am.
@darkedge11 REM was so great in concert. Seen them a few times but the one I remember most was the Grand Ole Opry on the Life's Rich Pageant tour - they had to stop the show, and after conferring with some guy on the side of the stage, Michael got on the mic and in a very nice way, asked the people in the balcony to please stop dancing so the show could continue - you could see the cracks in the plaster around the edges, there was a genuine fear it might collapse.
For the people that wrote positive comments regarding the song, I wish to acknowledge you have good taste. For people that may wish to get a sense of the underground scene at that time, You Tube bands like, 'X', 'Husker Du' , and the 'Pixies.
I remember reading a review of REM in Rolling Stone back in the day in which the reviewer wrote "now that we can understand what Michael Stipe is saying, we still don't know what Michael Stipe is saying"
I remember when Michael Stipe used to go to The Color Box (which changed its name to The Chameleon Club) in downtown Athens and dance without his shirt on and pick up gay boys to have flings with. Good times.
It was on USA network's "Night Flight" back in the 80's, that night I was introduced to REM with this video. Couldn't understand a word they sang but I loved it immediately.
Saw this on Night Flight on the USA network back in the day. I'd never heard of R.E.M. before, but I remember thinking "this is genius" and got the album asap. I was not disappointed.
this album was recorded using only a 4 track tape recorder.....not like todays over polished, over produced music....talent is raw and fresh for the 80's it's cool!
We had the perfect three ingredients to help usher in The New Wave into America: Denis McNamara program director at 92.7 WLIR-fm in Hempstead, Long Island, genius manager Ian Copeland, in Times Square NYC and the album Reckoning from R.E.M. The New Wave undeniable. Fuckn A!
Peter Buck got married here in Perth, Western Australia on Cottesloe Beach. He must have had his Bucks party on the plane to Perth, because he got drunk and unruly and rude. :-D (we’ve all been THERE....full of booze and bad manners ;-D.). The Feds arrested him on arrival Their first show was the next night and they were terrible. (The band might have been a little hungover still) Stipe was excellent though. By all accounts, the next show, on a Saturday night, made amends and they blew the roof off of The Perth Entertainment Center. I think it was 1994, and REM we’re having their 15 minutes of immense fame.
I can remember hearing this 28 years ago when i was 18 and i just blew me away. And hearing it again now, it still does. Its funny to think back to all the old friends who cringed and said "this sucks, Billy Squire rules !!!" I have to laugh and say "boy were you wrong" dumbass. Good bye guys the memories and music lives on forever. Oh, and where's Billy Squire these days
Sorry, for Finster's art you need to see Radio Free Europe. This is R.A. Miller's art. I took a folk art class at UGA back in those days '80-82 with Professor Art Rosenbaum (I was an art major with Michael Stipe) and we went to see both Paradise Garden and R.A. Miller's place, plus many other artists and musicians. It is one of my fondest memories from college.
John, the 80s are hugely underrated due to the horrible top 40 hits. There was some astounding music, which I was lucky enough to be in college from 1985-1990. Echo and the Bunnymen, U2's early stuff, the Smiths, New Order 10,000 maniacs and esp REM, leagues above any decade since.
Erik Sundbye + Cocteau Twins, The Fall, Talk Talk, The Durutti Column, The Church, Felt, Thin White Rope, Swans, Opal/Kendra Smith/early Mazzy Star, Galaxie 500, The House of Love, Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Waterboys, Sundays, early Simple Minds (and ONLY the "old" Simple Minds, from 79 to 1985), Band of Holy Joy, Kate Bush, The Sound, the old stuff from The Cure, Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Psychedelic Furs, World Party, The Go-Betweens, Clan of Xymox, Razorcuts and many more. All these fellows gave minor or huge hits in the 80's, in UK, Europe, South America (especially Argentina, Brazil and Peru) and Australia. Just to name a small part from several very good artists. But, it's so easy to look back to 80's and to remember silly crap things like Motley Crue, Milli Vanili (????), Baltimora (urgh!), Jermaine Jackson (who????), Sheena Easton, Rockwell, New Edition, Debbie Gibson, Richard Marx......
There was a possibility that IRS might have forced their initial choice of a more 'commercial' producer. R.E.M. liked working with Mitch Easter (who produced 'chronic town'), but fortunately IRS allowed R.E.M. to test out two producers with two separate tracks and work with the winning producer. You've already heard Mitch Easter's demo for 'Pilgrimage' (which was supposedly used as is for "Murmur"). Here's an early demo of 'Catapult' by Stephen Hague (who would later produce Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Erasure, New Order and Pet Shop Boys) -- /watch?v=GUv4tn3zGj0 You know the rest...
borbetomagus wow...that's interesting. i always viewed IRS as hardcore Indie / non pop...similar to Astralwerks today....i'm certainly not disagreeing with you. as an REM guy for 30+, i'm learning something new.
In Google Maps, I see a Pass Ln. around where his property was supposed to be. Was his house at the end of that road? It would be a shame if none of that was preserved.
