R.E.M.: Reckoning
I.R.S. Records SP70044/Interscope-Capitol Records Definitive Sound Series DSS 16 (LP; auditioned as a test pressing). 1984/2026. Don Dixon, Mitch Easter, prods.; Dixon, Easter, engs.; Bill Inglot, Chris Bellman, remastering.
Performance *****
Sonics ***** I remember buying this album (Jim Austin writes). I was home from college. Record stores had migrated to the mall, so that's where I was. As I flipped through records, Gloria Titherington appeared. Gloria and I had been buddies in elementary school but had gone our separate ways; we'd hardly talked at all through high school. She was home from college, too. She was on the University of Florida surfing team, she told me—which seems impressive until you notice where in Florida Gainesville is located.
That trip is when I bought Reckoning. On that same record store visit, I heard Madonna's "Like a Virgin" for the first time.
Why do I remember all this so well, when I've forgotten so much else about that time? I'd missed Murmur and the Chronic Town EP, so R.E.M. was completely new to me. I guess that made it memorable.
When I listen to pop and rock music today, everything I hear sounds like something else, something I've heard before. But circa 1984, R.E.M.'s sound came from out of nowhere. It was totally new and fresh.
I've heard most of these songs on the radio in the years since, but I'm trying to remember what they sounded like the first time I heard them, when I was listening with my cheap plastic Technics and whatever EPC cartridge it came with; a cheap Japanese receiver—Onkyo, Pioneer, Akai—and my prized Polk Audio Monitor 7Bs. The speakers were good; the rest would have aided R.E.M.'s intentional murk, which was already clearing on Reckoning, to the point where you could understand the lyrics. Even so, I'm remembering what I heard through 40 years of haze.
One more comment before I hand off to Mike Mettler: R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills had a girlfriend. Her name was Ingrid Schorr, and she, like Mills, was a student at the University of Georgia, Athens. She was planning to go back home to Rockville, Maryland, and he wanted her to stay. So, he did what one does in such situations: He wrote her a song.
In 1984, I was in love, in a long-distance relationship. I know it might sound strange, but I believe you'll be coming back before too long. It cut deep. Reckoning deserves—and gets, from me—five stars for Performance. This is an all-time great pop record, about stuff that mattered greatly to me and that mattered then and still matters to people at a certain unforgettable stage of life. So now I will let analog guru Mike Mettler assess the new DSS reissue's sonic merits.
Mike: Thank you, Jim. You're right about the freshness, though you're a few years late. R.E.M. woke most everyone up with the murmured janglings of their July 1981 debut single on Hib-Tone, "Radio Free Europe." It was the dawn of a new era, or a renewed era of the garage-band aesthetic, smothered this time with the low-budget aural kudzu of producer Mitch Easter. I bought my original Reckoning LP (Electrosound Group, Midwest pressing) at Record Swap in downtown Homewood, Illinois, right when it arrived in April 1984. I had also bought Chronic Town and Murmur when they came out, so unlike Jim, I was quite ready to reckon with Reckoning. The original Reckoning was coproduced by Easter and Don Dixon. They also coproduced this reissue—a reassurance to both Jim and me that it would be true to their 1984 intent. Chris Bellman mastered this Definitive Sound Series release directly from the analog master tapes, then cut a new set of lacquers at Bernie Grundman Mastering. This limited-edition One Step (5000 copies) was pressed at RTI on 180gm Neotech VR900-D2 vinyl, the same mastering/cutting/pressing M.O. as the outstanding December 2025 Chronic Town/Murmur DSS combo release (DSS 10), a five-star affair from start to finish.
I cued up my Reckoning RTI test pressing (199957881241 A6/B6) and compared it with both my 1984 I.R.S. original and a 2024 UMe repress (B0013029-1) of its 2009 reissue. The results were startling. While my 1984 LP remains a wonderful spin, 40-plus years on, and the 2024 edition does a mostly admirable job, this test pressing let me hear sonic details I'd never experienced before.
The biggest revelations came with the drumming clinics given by Bill Berry on every track. Stickwork, snares, rim taps, and cymbal hits—whether on bell, bow, or edge—were all more distinctive than in the original, especially during "So. Central Rain" and the delicate, organ-dolloped "Camera." Peter Buck's ringing Rickenbacker janglings, which splay across the stereo field like rubber bullets, got much, much dirtier during a tight 15-second sequence in the next-to-last chorus of "Pretty Persuasion." I marveled at the clarity of Mike Mills and Bill Berry's background vocals, a split-second behind Michael Stipe's lead vocals on the balance of the verses and choruses of "Harborcoat." The album-closing "Little America," a sludgefest on both the 1984 and 2009 discs, widened the berth of its travelogue considerably on the DSS LP.
Final tip: Don't pick up the needle before the brief, unlisted jam coda plays itself out.
I could go on, but I'll hand it back to Jim for the final "reckoning"—but not until after this last observation, with apologies (not really) to original R.E.M. manager Jefferson Holt: The consul a horse / Jim Austin, I think we're not lost.—Mike Mettler
We met in September 1983. I married her in May 1991. We're still at it.—Jim Austin
I.R.S. Records SP70044/Interscope-Capitol Records Definitive Sound Series DSS 16 (LP; auditioned as a test pressing). 1984/2026. Don Dixon, Mitch Easter, prods.; Dixon, Easter, engs.; Bill Inglot, Chris Bellman, remastering.
Performance *****
Sonics ***** I remember buying this album (Jim Austin writes). I was home from college. Record stores had migrated to the mall, so that's where I was. As I flipped through records, Gloria Titherington appeared. Gloria and I had been buddies in elementary school but had gone our separate ways; we'd hardly talked at all through high school. She was home from college, too. She was on the University of Florida surfing team, she told me—which seems impressive until you notice where in Florida Gainesville is located.
Mike: Thank you, Jim. You're right about the freshness, though you're a few years late. R.E.M. woke most everyone up with the murmured janglings of their July 1981 debut single on Hib-Tone, "Radio Free Europe." It was the dawn of a new era, or a renewed era of the garage-band aesthetic, smothered this time with the low-budget aural kudzu of producer Mitch Easter. I bought my original Reckoning LP (Electrosound Group, Midwest pressing) at Record Swap in downtown Homewood, Illinois, right when it arrived in April 1984. I had also bought Chronic Town and Murmur when they came out, so unlike Jim, I was quite ready to reckon with Reckoning. The original Reckoning was coproduced by Easter and Don Dixon. They also coproduced this reissue—a reassurance to both Jim and me that it would be true to their 1984 intent. Chris Bellman mastered this Definitive Sound Series release directly from the analog master tapes, then cut a new set of lacquers at Bernie Grundman Mastering. This limited-edition One Step (5000 copies) was pressed at RTI on 180gm Neotech VR900-D2 vinyl, the same mastering/cutting/pressing M.O. as the outstanding December 2025 Chronic Town/Murmur DSS combo release (DSS 10), a five-star affair from start to finish.
We met in September 1983. I married her in May 1991. We're still at it.—Jim Austin
