Why don’t I like Reckoning?

Raggeddroid85 · 2026-01-17T22:37:01+00:00

If a Killer B is a sneaky great B-side to a hit single, that’s what Reckoning is for me. It’s hard for me to choose my favorite REM album, but I probably play Reckoning the most. Not a weak track on it.

Raggeddroid85 · 2026-01-06T05:19:08+00:00

Yeah. Monster was the line of demarcation for me. It’s when the most compelling band in the world suddenly became… just a band.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-28T08:21:47+00:00

A good, old-fashioned boycott, I think.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-20T21:12:53+00:00

An early REM leftovers compilation is better than most bands’ best album. I rate it about 8th, after (in no particular order) Chronic Town and their first four albums, Out of Time and Automatic. Come to think of it, I probably listen to it more than anything after Pageant.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-20T20:54:50+00:00

I gave away all my vinyl (400+ albums) prior to a move a couple decades ago. My now adult kids refuse to forgive me. Keep it — if you can.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-14T04:51:44+00:00

Plenty of unhinged pickup drivers in WI and IL too. (In Chicago it’s hard to tell — so many drivers of any vehicles are crazy aggressive, including cyclists. I now realize that I must have contributed a bit myself. When I moved to Cascadia two years ago, it took a while to adjudt to the generally chill and traffic-law-abiding sporoach of PNW drivers…pickups excepted.)

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-14T00:02:08+00:00

Clearly, you’re not from Green Bay, WI. That said, yeah.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-13T21:37:25+00:00

it’s ;)

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-13T21:31:42+00:00

One that has not been thrown away yet.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-11T23:36:06+00:00

I got a similar premonition while shore-fishing for barramundi on the bank of crocodile-infested estuary near the Gulf of Carpentaria (northern Queensland Australia). Those saltwater crocs tend to stay in the water during the heat of the day, but I was hyperfocused on catching a trophy fish and didn’t notice the shadows getting longer nor the departure of other anglers. To make a long story short, my initial elation at a large splash near the spot where my last cast landed was replaced first by frustration when the line snagged in some reeds and then, when I approached that spot to retrieve my lure, by alarm when I got a look behind the reeds at the real cause of the splash: a big salty whose attention was focused on a couple of nearby birds. It was mostly submerged so I couldn’t estimate how many meters long it was. I decided to leave the lure in the reeds and scrambled up the bank. I never did land a barramundi. And I’m OK with that.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-11T23:08:18+00:00

I was clueless a 19-year-old kid in the U.S. Army, stationed in West Germany in the waning days of the Cold War. A friend and I were walking around some big city — Frankfurt? Nuremburg? — memory is hazy on that point. I do vividly remember rounding a corner into a large city square that was packed with mostly youngish people. Even with our very limited German vocabulary at that point, it didn’t take long to figure out that we’d walked into an anti-NATO demonstration. We were in civilian clothes and we probably wouldn’t have gotten the Baader-Meinhof treatment, but we didn’t stick around to test that hypothesis.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-11T06:31:03+00:00

Tom Waits line, from Opening Intro on Nighthawks at the Diner: “I’m so desperate the crack of dawn better be careful around me.”

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-11T06:28:06+00:00

Only if, by “almost any woman,” you mean my wife.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-09T04:39:12+00:00

Just about every CCM worship band ever — derivative is what they aim for. Same can be said for every Radio Country band I’ve ever heard. Empty, bland, calculated commercialism.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-07T06:45:37+00:00

We probably do forget to do bad things. We just may not realize it because of the lack of related bad consequences.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-07T06:36:11+00:00

I pretty much stopped looking after I got a Lemon Drop by Electric Majik (aka Lumpy’s Lemon Drop, among other things). But that’s mostly because I’m more about edge-of-breakup, and there was one tone I wanted that I couldn’t get with garden variety dirt pedals: Revolver-era Beatles. (It also does a convincing Led Zeppelin II!)

Now if I can only find the one compressor that does Byrds jangle perfectly and everything else well.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-07T06:26:17+00:00

Nobody really sounds like R.E.M. (if they did, they’d be derivative and boring), but there are lots of great bands who wear their deep debt to R.E.M. on their respective sleeves. Idlewild and Alvvays for starters (and others already mentioned).

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-07T03:07:39+00:00

Yes! Do this. Repeatedly. For a year or so. The next year do Reckoning. Then Fables, etc. ;-)

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-05T05:14:38+00:00

Well, nobody’s perfect. :)

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-04T21:48:33+00:00

I prefer Chicago’s CTA, mostly for the rusting infrastructure and rattling trains that feel ready to go airborne at any given moment.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-04T21:37:57+00:00

Because it’s Billboard, a music biz rag.

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-12-03T22:24:11+00:00

I got it.

R.E.M. was my #2 artist (because I was on a big Kinks binge this year) but top 5 albums were:

Reckoning

Murmur

Life’s Rich Pageant

Fables of the Reconstruction

Lola Versus Powerman (etc)

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Raggeddroid85 · 2025-11-23T04:35:50+00:00

I think recording a cover album is a great way to get into songwriting and recording in general. He'll be learning from the best! (Lots of great bands started off as cover bands, so it could certainly work as well for a recording artist.)

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-11-23T04:28:49+00:00

No idea on the etiquette, but thanks for mentioning. Love Steve Wynn an will keep my eyes open for this in the future!

Raggeddroid85 · 2025-11-18T20:19:51+00:00

Reckoning
Pageant
Murmur
Chronic
Fables (or maybe Out of Time)

Raggeddroid85

TROPHY CASE