Reckoning (a.k.a. File Under Water), released in 1984 through I.R.S. Records, is the second album by American Alternative Rock band R.E.M.. Beginning production just after the release of their cult hit debut, Murmur, the album presents a continuation of its predecessor's murky sound and opaque lyricism, but slightly modified to fit returning producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon's desire to more accurately capture the style of the band's live performances at the time. Recording sessions were more spontaneous, with all the material for the record being taped in well under a monthnote , and binaural recording was used extensively to simulate the feeling of sitting in the audience of an R.E.M. concert. The leadup to the album's recording was equally efficient, with the band writing two good songs a week and recording a whopping 22 of them with Neil Young collaborator Elliot Mazer in November alone. The band had so much usable material that guitarist Peter Buck pushed for Reckoning to be a double-LP; the request fell flat, both because the band were still fairly green as a recording act and because even indie labels were balking at the idea of making double albums ever since the relative failure of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, but the band would revisit the unused material here and there on later projects.
Contrary to this musical spontaneity, Reckoning's lyrics shift to a more introspective direction, motivated by Michael Stipe facing both exhaustion from touring and the death of his girlfriend and band photographer Carol Levy, who was killed in a car crash while R.E.M. were on tour in support of Murmur. Because of both of these, it was difficult for Stipe to record vocal parts, singing so quietly the microphone was completely unable to pick him up. In one instance, during the recording of the song "7 Chinese Bros.", Dixon managed to spur Stipe back into shape by having him sing the liner notes to the gospel album The Joy of Knowing Jesus by the Revelaires to the "7 Chinese Bros." backing track (this eclectic composition was later given the title "Voice of Harold" and released as a B-side to the "So. Central Rain" single, as well as on the Dead Letter Office rarities compilation in 1987). Stipe's low state, meanwhile, was nonetheless reflected in the album's bleaker lyrics, with an abundance of aquatic imagery that contributed to an overarching feeling that was both agoraphobically stranded and claustrophobically trapped.
Like Murmur before it, Reckoning wasn't a major commercial success upon release, but its No. 27 peak on the Billboard 200 was still indicative of the gradually growing size of the band's cult following; in the UK, it would reach a much less stellar No. 91 on the albums chart, though again this was more the result of I.R.S. Records' dismal international distribution. Reckoning was, though, a top-charting hit on college radio stations, and would eventually be certified gold by the RIAA.
Reckoning was supported by two singles: "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" and "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville".
Tracklist
Side L- "Harborcoat" (3:54)
- "7 Chinese Bros." (4:18)
- "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" (3:15)
- "Pretty Persuasion" (3:50)
- "Time After Time (Annelise)" (3:31)
Side R
- "Second Guessing" (2:51)
- "Letter Never Sent" (2:59)
- "Camera" (5:52)
- "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" (4:55)
- "Little America" (2:58)
Try to trope that on your sleeve:
- Alliterative Title: "Pretty Persuasion"
- Arc Words: References to water, rain, and oceans recur on the album, to the point where it was marked and originally intended to be titled File Under Water.
- As the Good Book Says...: "So. Central Rain" alludes to the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders.
- Caligula's Horse: The choruses of "Little America" directly reference the Trope Namer with the phrase "the consul a horse," tying in with the song's themes of confusion and uncertainty.
- Call-Back: One of Mike Mills' backing lines in "Harborcoat" is "Laocoön is lost," nodding back to the abstract retelling of his death in "Laughing" and tying into the Reckoning track's themes of martyrdom and revolution.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Many of the songs on Reckoning are much bleaker and more personal lyrically than the ones on Murmur, in spite of the more open sound of the music itself.
- Changed for the Video:
- The video for "So. Central Rain" has Michael Stipe performing the song live in the studio, as he refused to lip-sync at the time (the rest of the band, meanwhile, simply mime to the backing track).
- Left of Reckoning appends a brief studio verite jam at the end of "Time After Time (Annelise)", marking the transition from the last song on Side L to the first song on Side R; this same jam opens the film.
- Color Motif: Like Murmur before it, Reckoning features the band indulging in both their early association with the color blue and their later association with the color yellow, with a predominantly blue front cover and a predominantly yellow back. The hype sticker included on LP copies and some of the liner notes on CD ones are also bright yellow, the cassette release places the album art against a yellow backdrop, and parts of the snake on the front cover are green, the result of mixing blue and yellow.
- Compilation Re-release: The album was rereleased with the Chronic Town EP and Murmur in LP replica sleeves as part of EMI's The Originals series of boxed sets in Europe in 1995 (I.R.S. switched distributors to EMI in 1990 and would remain on the label until they went bankrupt in 1996).
- Concept Album: Most of the songs on the record revolve around themes of personal anguish and struggle, with repeated references to water as a metaphor for these experiences.
- Design Student's Orgasm: The front cover is a collaboration between Michael Stipe and outsider artist Howard Finster: Stipe drew the two-headed snake, while Finster did the coloring and drew the elaborate collage of doodles in the background. Finster would later achieve wider fame the following year by doing the cover art for Talking Heads' Little Creatures.
- Driving Song: "Little America" describes the ennui of the band's exhaustive touring schedule, using it as a metaphor for general anxiety about the passage of one's life.
- Either/Or Title: The album has two names listed on the spine of LP copies: Reckoning and File Under Water. According to Michael Stipe, the latter is meant to be the true album title, but I.R.S. vetoed them and picked Reckoning as the main name instead; it now goes almost exclusively by that, with File Under Water occasionally used as a subtitle.
- Elemental Motifs: The album repeatedly references water as a metaphor for personal struggle and anguish, to the extent where its alternate (and originally intended) title is File Under Water.
- Epic Rocking: Counting the Hidden Track within it, "Camera" just barely falls short of this trope, being 8 seconds below the 6-minute mark.
- Face on the Cover: Not on the front cover, but like Murmur, photos of the band feature on the back and in the liner notes (and unlike Murmur, the photos are actually on the back cover of the CD release too this time around).
- Fading into the Next Song: The brief instrumental at the very end of "Camera" flows directly into the start of "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville".
- Grief Song: "Camera" was written as a tribute to Carol Levy, a photographer friend of the band (and sometime girlfriend of Stipe) who died in a car accident the day after Murmur was released.
- Gratuitous Panning: Bill Berry's drum part in "Time After Time (Annelise)" comes in solely through the right channel; later, a second drum part appears in the left channel. During the instrumental bridge, the right channel swaps out the rhythmic drumbeat for a metallic clang.
- Hidden Track:
- A short studio verité instrumental jam plays just after "Camera" fades out, unrelated to the rest of the song.
- As with Murmur the previous year, a vintage radio ad for the album is included in the pregap before the first track on the bonus disc of the 2009 25th anniversary re-release.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: LP and cassette copies list the sides as "L" and "R", representing "left" and "right."
- Lyrical Dissonance: Featured extensively throughout the album, thanks to its lightening of the band's sound contrasted with their darkening lyrics. In particular, "7 Chinese Bros." sounds fairly jolly on the surface, then you find out it is about Michael Stipe's guilt towards an affair in which he split up a man and a woman and went out with both of them behind each other's backs.
- Mood Whiplash: "Camera", a moody, legato Grief Song, is directly followed by a goofy improvised instrumental that segues into the pleading Country Music ballad "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville".
- New Sound Album: Thanks to Easter & Dixon's desire to replicate the sound of R.E.M.'s live performances, the use of Echoing Acoustics and other production embellishments is heavily toned down, resulting in a noticeably less opaque take on the band's early Jangle Pop sound.
- Non-Appearing Title:
- "So. Central Rain" (though the chorus lyric "I'm sorry" was added as a subtitle when the song was released as a single) and "Little America".
- "Time After Time (Anneliese)" is a subversion; "Annelise" is never heard in the song, but "Time After Time" is.
- One-Word Title: Reckoning, "Harborcoat", "Camera".
- Performance Video: "So. Central Rain" is notable for consisting of Michael Stipe singing a brand-new vocal track, as he refused to lip-sync. (The rest of the band, silhouetted behind screens, mimed to the backing track.)
- Precision F-Strike: Not as harsh as later examples, but "Pretty Persuasion" features a few "goddamns" in the choruses that make up the only instances of strong language on the entire record.
- Product Placement: "Little America" namedrops the Magic Mart chain of department stores common throughout the southern United States, tying in with the lyrics about extensive touring.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" was originally written by Mike Mills as a plea to his girlfriend at the time, Ingrid Schorr, to not move back to Rockville, Maryland.
- Rearrange the Song: "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" was originally a Punk Rock-oriented staple of live performances; here it was rearranged as a Country Music track as a nod to band lawyer Bertis Downs, a fan of the genre.
- Shout-Out:
- "7 Chinese Bros." takes its name and chorus from the 1938 children's book The Five Chinese Brothers, which, like the song, covers themes of selfishness vs. unity. The book itself is an adaptation of the Ming-era Chinese folk tale Ten Brothers, thus making the song a reference to that as well.
- A self-referential one with "Little America", which includes the line "Jefferson, I think we're lost" in reference to Jefferson Holt, who at the time was their manager (and bus driver, hence the phrase). After Holt was fired for sexual harassment in 1996, performances of the song changed the line to "Washington, I think we're lost", referencing the band's disillusionment with the government.
- Step Up to the Microphone: In concert, Mills performed lead vocals on more recent performances of "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville", owing to the fact that it was about his ex-girlfriend.
- Studio Chatter:
- "Second Guessing" and "Voice of Harold" (the B-side to the "So. Central Rain" single, later found on Dead Letter Office) both open with Don Dixon saying "rolling!" to cue the tape, followed by Peter Buck giving a count-off. The latter additionally ends with Michael Stipe saying "let's start it again."
- The Hidden Track at the end of "Camera" features the band members bantering with one another.
- Surreal Music Video: The entire "L" side (plus "Second Guessing") served as the soundtrack to a twentysomething-minute short film entitled Left of Reckoning, done by Stipe's art tutor James Herbert, that essentially gives one of these to each of the album's first six tracks. Through the use of art close-ups, filters, time speed-ups and slow-downs and other avant-garde film choices, it captures the band randomly wandering around the Whirligig Farm in Rabbittown, Georgia.
- Whole-Plot Reference: In 1991, Michael Stipe confirmed that the lyrics to "Harborcoat" were his attempt at adapting The Diary of a Young Girl.
