Feeling Gravity's POLL: REM's "Fables of the Reconstruction"

Can't imagine "Driver 8" won't win, though "Gravity's Pull" is a strong dark horse.

Peter Buck hates "Wendell Gee." He's so wrong.

But I voted "Gravitys."

Their worst album before Green. Not much I remember other than "Wendell Gee," "Driver 8," and the execrable "Can't Get There From Here." Voted for "Wendell Gee."

this is a good record to separate the old school fans from the fans of the multi-platinum years. i think this is way more interesting than anything that came after, but it is murky and hard to penetrate. can't get there from here doesn't fit on this album or anywhere else, it's just a jokey throwaway that somehow became a (semi)hit.

kohoutek is their greatest song ever.

i like "can't get there." but yeah, i have a lot of affection for this record. "feeling gravity's pull" is probably my favorite, but "driver 8," "kohoutek," "life and how to live it." "green grow the rushes" is really pretty. good album.

Poll title was a toss-up between this, "KoPOULLtek," and "POLLed Man Kensey" which I kind of regret not going with.

"Kohoutek" is the real slow-burner of this record, I like it more and more with every single listen. "Driver 8" just kicks ass, so does "Can't Get There From Here" which also has Stipe going "Yeep!" at the beginning. Are the really big horns on this or only on Eponymous?

And then there's "Life And How To Live It," maybe the last of their great skittery jittery rockers where it feels like the wheels are going to come off at any moment - the descendent of Chronic Town and "9-9." After this record they still did plenty of great rock tunes but they were more locked down somehow - don't quite know how to articulate this but there's a nervous energy that gradually gets concentrated into something more focused, not necessarily better or worse but different.

I voted for "Driver 8" in homage to the startling proportion of my sophomore year of college I spent playing it on my crappy acoustic guitar. "Can't Get There From Here" is a strong runner-up -- not a joke track at all, I'd have thought. And indeed, "Life and how to live it." Which is more closely related to "Pretty Persuasion" than "9-9" I think, and not really the last of its kind -- that is "Just a Touch."

Here we're in the middle of a long stretch where REM were incapable of making a bad record.

God, "Driver 8" is so good... there's this perfect note struck of sympathetic comfort, and some great railroad travel imagery to boot.

"power lines have floaters so the airplanes don't get snagged"

that line is almost exactly how my parents explained those power line balls to me when i was 7 or 8. that whole song is kind of childlike, stipe doing his naive impressionist thing.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1173/1267344528_02d8a69b26.jpg?v=0

Also reminds me a lot of Wendell Gee building the missing middle of a tree out of chicken wire - the same kind of dream logic.

can't decide between Green Grow the Rushes and Good Advices.

I totaled a car to "Driver 8"

Haven't decided what to vote for, but this is the only REM album I listen to now.

Voted for this. Spazzy dance and all

Agreed about this being one of their finest moments. My first job after leaving school was in a drug company laboratory, and one of my jobs was to inspect ampoules for specks of dust, which had to be done in the chemical store cupboard with a lamp. I would sit there and play this album completely enraptured. The jar of amphetamine sulphate that was kept in there helped too.
Gravity always sends shivers down my spine.

Wendell Gee but there are at least four other tracks here vying for second place.

Brilliant album and another vote for Driver 8.

kohoutek is their greatest song ever.

OTM

"Wendell Gee" by a landslide. The only thing in this album that holds up to the general quality of their first two.

maybe my third favourite REM album at rough count. half the songs in contention but Driver 8 is as special as it is obvious.

Was gonna vote Wendell Gee but's Geir's "by a landside" has put me off somehow. No winner is going to be by a landslide - there really isn't a bad track on this and, as Matt DC says, there are so many close run second bests they may even be first bests.

Feeling Gravity's Pull has swung it, I think - "Time and distance are out of place here" sort of sums up the track. It's unsettling and fantastic.

I want to vote for "Driver 8," but it's like the mid-80s suburban "Layla" -- EVERY fucking high-school-age band was playing it. So I'm goin' with "Kohoutek" -- the last great mysterious R.E.M. song.

I want to vote for "Driver 8," but it's like the mid-80s suburban "Layla" -- EVERY fucking high-school-age ban

Really? What was the band's college radio exposure at this point? The next two records really raised their mainstream profile.

they utterly unfuckingavoidable on college radio at the time. this is probably their worst '80s record.

oh, and i went with "Green Grow the Rushes" just for the hell of it.

oops *they were

xp

Life and How To Live It, one of their greatest songs.

I returned to vote for "Maps and Legends," a beautiful slice of beauty. This is a great album and was FURIOUS live.

Voted "Kohoutek" last night before I had a chance to be influenced by any other opinions, but it could have been any of 3 or 4 songs. This album is the end of that stretch of theirs that I love, "Chronic Town" and the first 3 albums. After that they got boring to me.

geez, maybe I'll have time to listen to this before I vote; probly haven't played it in 15 years. In '85 I thought it was a disappointment.

Alfred so wrong about "Can't Get There From Here."

This one still sounds good all the way through. All that survives for me of the next one is Fall on Me

Alfred so wrong about "Can't Get There From Here."

But you don't dance!

dancing to rock only makes sense if it's, like, the Monks.

I don't know how 'Wendell Gee' goes so I don't understand the praise for it here.

I do like 'Good Advices' quite a bit - it has sweetness and at least a veneer of wisdom.

'Maps & Legends' I am very fond of. I like the intuitive, reflex jangling of all this.

But there is no contest: with that shimmering riff, that shuddering tipsy feeling of love, loss and time as the track stops on a cliff's edge, that title even - LIFE AND HOW TO LIVE IT

I never quite understood all the love for that one - I saw them play it around 1999 and the guy standing in front of me went absolutely mental in this total "now I can die happy!" way. Sounds a bit of a mess to me.

I'm a big fan of this album - way underrated!

I'm going with the obvious choice of "Driver 8" because that riff is one of their very best.

I want to vote for "Driver 8," but it's like the mid-80s suburban "Layla" -- EVERY fucking high-school-age ban

So OTM

live and how to live it

Driver 8 and how to drive it.

admittedly, i haven't heard the fucking thing in its entirety for some 23(?) years. but it just seemed like such a huge letdown coming after their first two albums that i could never really go back to it.

meanwhile, Matt's back!!!

haven't listened to this in a lonnnnnnng time, but it's probably not as bad as Green.

Green may not be as consistent an album overall, but it sure as hell had greater highs than this one did.

This is a great album and was FURIOUS live.

OTM. I was shocked at how loud they were (spring '85 "Preconstruction" tour). They're neck-and-neck with AC/DC. Or at least they were then.

Green

I don't see any highs here, really.

"Pop Song 89" – ehhh, whatever.
"Get Up" – 2:39 not too bad
"You Are the Everything" – 3:41 pretty good
"Stand" – 3:10 I KILL YOU NOW
"World Leader Pretend" – 4:17 overwrought bologna
"The Wrong Child" – 3:36 --- ibid
"Orange Crush" – 3:51 --not too bad
"Turn You Inside-Out" – 4:16 -- ok
"Hairshirt" – 3:55 -- i don't even remember this
"I Remember California" – 4:59--crap. like side 2 of document but somehow worse.
11th untitled song – 3:10 --kinda cute

I like all the Green singles ("Stand" was the first REM song I ever heard), but this is the wrong thread. The second side's awful.

i dunno. a couple of those tracks are real standouts.

document is a bit better than green, but none of them really compare with the first 3 albums

Re: "Life and How To Live It": it's all about Mike Mills's bass part rolling up to the chorus. Incredible sense of excitement and arrival, and Stipe's lyrics are so animated! "My pockets are out and running about" somehow summarizes this entire area of their catalog.

You guys are doing a damn good job of making me listen to this after work.

Not the first REM album I usually think of to pull out by any means, but pretty unassailable nonetheless. And Kohoutek absolutely SHREDS ME. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

Yeah, I hope all the people saying they haven't listened to this in ages give it another spin!

I love this album and even I haven't listened to it in ages. Am doing so right now. BELLS ARE RINGING THROUGH THE TOWN AGAIN.

"Stand" – 3:10 I KILL YOU NOW

"Get a Life" hata

not true. i liked Get A Life

"Good Advices" gets my voice.

The last four songs on Fables are the heart of the album to me, an EP within the album. "Kohoutek" augurs something awful with its drone. "Auctioneer (Another Engine)" is an attempt to escape the awful thing ("get me to the train on time"), with high-pitched screeching/feedback accenting the terror. "Good Advices" is an acceptance of the something awful ("at the end of the day, when there are no friends, when there are no lovers"), but there is no more fight left in the band. It's maybe their most country moment in that respect. Then "Wendell Gee" is a look back by someone else, detached, surveying the damage but narrating it from above or beyond.

The only album of theirs that I can stand (aside from maybe Monster). Loved it when I was in high school (back when it came out). If I remember correctly, lp would indicate that it's called "Fables of the Reconstruction of the Fables of the Reconstruction..." ad infinitum.

Probably "Can't Get There From Here."

I want to vote for "Driver 8," but it's like the mid-80s suburban "Layla" -- EVERY fucking high-school-age ban

WTF? I would love to live near a radio station that played "Driver 8."

OK. Having just heard the album for the first time in years, I forgot how "Old Man Kensey" and "Kohoutek" go minutes after listening to them.

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Yeah, I hope all the people saying they haven't listened to this in ages give it another spin!

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, October 28, 2008 11:36 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark
Yup, did tonight. A hell of a record. Not their most audience-friendly moment, but less of a "closet" album than Murmur and all the better for it. Every song is better than the one before, almost -- at least, I found myself saying "I'm picking this song" until the next started, and that one was even better. Stipe's lyrics, when you can hear them, sometimes kick songs out of the running. (as in "Good Advices", which is funny and cool anyhow) (It occurs to me as I listen now that he's not a great lyricist, or a great melodicist (?!), or a great singer, but the band would have been so much less without him ... Stipe is the Ringo Starr of REM.) "Wendell Gee" nearly made a last-track nab for the prize, but "Green Grow the Rushes" takes it.

(Noticed for the first time that "Auctioneer"'s verses are a total U2 ripoff/pisstake/tribute [pick one].)

(After Fables was over, I put on Lifes Rich Pageant to see if it held up. Another record I haven't heard in years. It surprised me how good it was, still. Not as good as the first three, but still pretty awesome.)

I would love to live near a radio station that played "Driver 8."

that was the first r.e.m. track that i remember hearing on commercial rock-radio. it wasn't in heavy rotation, but it was there. (i remember hearing "pretty persuasion" on the same station, but i think that was sort of added retroactively a few years later.) but "fall on me" was the real breakthrough, that got a lot of play.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Wendell Gee" for me. One of their greatest songs and anticipates the grandiose simplicity of their later great ballads - "Nightswimming", "Find The River" etc.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Thanks for joining in, everyone!

This is one of those albums that feels like it has several "last songs" to me - like, all four of Wendell Gee, Good Advices, Old Man Kensey and Auctioneer would kind of work.

"Driver 8" is one of my least favourite songs on the album.

25th Anniversary edition box set on the way

Originally released in 1985, R.E.M.'s 3rd album, Fables of The Reconstruction peaked at #28 on the Billboard charts and spawned two hit singles, Can t Get There From here and Driver 8. Breaking with their tradition of recording in Athens GA, the band recorded in England with producer Joe Boyd.

This 25th Anniversary Edition features the classic album digitally remastered. The bonus disc is a complete run thorugh of the album done in studio in Athens, before the band left for London for the actual recording sessions. These demos have never before been released and feature three additional tracks, not on the final album, including "Throw Those Trolls Away, " a song the band has never released.

The albums are packaged in a lift top box and include a poster and 4 postcards, as well as the CD booklet.

I would love to live near a radio station that played "Driver 8."
funny, i was just talking to someone (older than myself) who was complaining about how overplayed Driver 8 was when it came out. it may have been the first time he'd heard REM, I'm not sure ... but it does seem weird. Certainly not an REM song that gets played on the radio these days, at least that I've heard.
anyhoo, the re-ish sounds swell. love this record.

"Life and How to Live It" so so good.

It's a good time of year for this record, the swelter creating mirages everywhere until it ends in a thunderstorm & a rainbow.

Still my favourite REM album by a long chalk

"Life and How to Live It" is my favorite. Looking forward to hearing the demos.

Does the reissue sound better than the thin, shitty-sounding original version? Or are the differences negligible, as is often the case with these sorts of thing?

If it's better, totally buying this soon.

This is exactly how Stipe's vocals should be mixed, but Bill Berry's drums sound pretty terrible.

Still way in the back, huh?

I've only listened to the clips on iTunes, but have to say that I think they sound AWESOME. I always thought that I didn't like the production on this album so much, but I know a lot was often lost in record mastering. Totally recommend checking it out.

Yeah, the reissues sound terrific, with Mills and Berry being the real beneficiaries here, both in terms of mixing/mastering their instruments and the backing vocals. Also, the rawness of the demos on the extra CD is fantastic.

Yeah, I wasn't talking about the reissues above, just the album in general. It is a weird mix, which give it a very specific vibe.

haven't heard the remasters, but it's been years since i last listened to fables of the reconstruction. REM were my favorite band circa 1985, and i bought the album on cassette, within a few days of its release, en route to my 1st semester of college. i bought it again on vinyl once i'd settled in. i dug it, though never with the intensity i'd reserved for reckoning and especially murmur. the songwriting is wonderful, and the album's best songs are at least as strong as anything they'd recorded previously, but i struggled with the fact that they were outgrowing the sound i'd initially fallen in love with, experimenting with writing, arrangement and production. "can't get there from here" is the most obvious example of this, but you also get strings on "feeling gravity's pull", choirlike backing vocals on "maps & legends", explicit byrds pastiche on "green grow the rushes", and so on.

i'm surprised but somewhat gratified to hear so many complaints about the album's sound, because, for better or worse, it was at the time REM's biggest, cleanest and punchiest production. sharp vocals way out in front so you could easily tell what stipe was singing about, with plenty of room reserved for guitars, bass and drums on each track. these qualities helped the record reach a broader audience, but something about it always kept me at a slight distance. it lacks easter & dixon's fanatical attention to sonic detail, and the production seems to favor "the tune" (its melodic and harmonic elements, especially buck's guitars) over rhythm and texture, reducing the importance of bass & drums in relation to the overall sound. it's big-sounding but a bit generic, and maybe that helps explain why i had trouble warming to it.

Wow, I hear this a lot differently. I think Reckoning sounds way "bigger" than this esp. re drums, and Stipe's vocals are pretty low here as well. To me it sounds like you are describing Life's Rich Pageant.

I mean, check these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjDt9oOTPLo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW6d0uv1pW0

I still retain a lot of goodwill towards this album, even though I'm sure some of the songs don't hold up that well (haven't checked). I play "Driver 8" now and again, so I know that still sounds great. It came out just before I started writing for a monthly music paper--the issue before I started had a big article where a writer accompanied them on the road for a few days--and they were one of my two or three favourite bands in the world at the time, so all of that mixes together to give Fables a lot of nostalgic value.

Just speaking for myself, but they still seemed really special or significant or something when Fables came out. If you weren't there (or if you were there and hated them), that will sound laughable. Twenty-five years later, I'll admit that something Christgau wrote about Devo was probably part of their appeal at the time (a small part, but there): "the thrill of being in a cult that could attract millions and still seem like a cult."

To me it sounds like you are describing Life's Rich Pageant.

yeah, i'd agree that life's rich pageant was an even bigger step towards an accessible, radio-friendly sound, but i never thought of reckoning as a "big" sounding album on any level. should really pull all these out and relisten as a set, as it's been ages, probably 15 years since i last heard fables and LRP.

Seriously, you guys, check out the remaster. This album has a great production that just ended up thin sounding in its original mastering.

are the demos on the bonus disc worthwhile?

This album has a great production that just ended up thin sounding in its original mastering.

being inexpert in these areas, i'm never sure what to make of claims about mastering and remastering. do you mean only that the original CD mastering was poor, or were there similar problems with the vinyl mastering? and when albums are "remastered" and rereleased in this manner, is it really just the mastering that's been adjusted? in some cases, i get the impression that the mix has been subtly tweaked, which seems a different issue.

I assume that if they're saying "remaster," they just did a new mastering from the finished, mixed master tape and did not go back and do a new mix.

The mastering process is mysterious to me, too, and I don't know how they seem to have brought this album to life so much. Just sounds really crisp and full, with great definition.

this remaster does sound excellent. ultimately i think i prefer the sound of either reckoning or lifes rich pageant, but this one feels stuck halfway in between those two poles (big/clean, murky/grimy) in an interesting way.

i hate it and L O V E the 2 albums either side of it like my own family. i've never understood that at all but i've tried many times with it. is it the songs?
Green Grow.. is just.. half finished. no better than a band in a pub doodling.

Although I no longer think "Can't Get There..." is a horror, the album is still their weakest pre-Document. "Wendell Gee" is pretty but they've done obscure Southern gothic better. I'd keep "Driver 8," "Feeling Gravity's Pull," and "Green Grow the Rushes."

I only got a copy of this album this year (yeah yeah) but I would have voted for 'Life and How to Live It.'
I really like this video for it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJJwjE2TG6Q

yeah, "life and how to live it" is the underrated gem here. as great as anything on the surrounding couple of albums (which, as noted, i prefer)

i suppose it's not really "underrated" when it's received several effusive mentions ITT. still! amazing song.

Best. Wish that when they decided they needed to "rock" later in their career they listened to this song.

Remaster sounds best in headphones, I think. That's where I'm really hearing the separation I'd never heard before. (Was amazed to hear the harmonica in "Driver 8," which I don't think I ever even noticed?)

this album is all about the bass

OTM! Especially on 'Driver 8', that's a great bassline. I'm a huge fan of Mike Mills' playing on those early albums, although Murmur and Reckoning are so trebly that it's easy to overlook his playing sometimes. 'Radio Free Europe' is a great bassline.

It punches through really clearly on the Murmur remaster

'Belong' on Out Of Time too, the bass makes that song in my humble opinion. As a piece of music there's very little there, but the bass gives the track melody and is the glue that holds the whole thing together!

Adore the "Belong" bassline - secret key to the chorus working as well as it does.

I haven't checked out the recent reissues with demos on the bonus discs. Are they anything more than curiosities?

demo of Hyena makes it sound like a Reckoning track; it's.. weird. also some pretty interesting other demo bits on Fables' 2nd disc. they're all on Spotify (in the UK at least).

Just learned that Stipe's first choice to produce Fables was Van Dyke Parks, and when that didn't pan out, Elliot Mazer. Either of those could have been very interesting.... (but I love Joe Boyd's production here and elsewhere nonetheless)

I spent a lot of time playing "Driver 8" on my acoustic guitar as a teenager. Pre-internet, Stipe's mumble of the "power lines" line made it impossible to transcribe. I rewound the cassette *so* many times, only found it out from a piece of sheet music several years later.

I want to vote for "Driver 8," but it's like the mid-80s suburban "Layla" -- EVERY fucking high-school-age band was playing it.

This can't possibly have been true, can it?

I loved this album when I was a teenager. I think I voted for "Feeling Gravity's Pull"?

Hyena was a Reckoning-era track. It shows up frequently on bootlegs of the era.

Yeah, there's quite a few songs from Life Rich Pageant that came from the Reckoning era and even earlier. Pageant was a bit of a backlog-clearing exercise in a way.

What If We Give It Away goes right back to the beginning of the band iirc

"Just a Touch" as well

Yeah, definitely 'Hyena', 'Just A Touch' and 'What If We Give It Away?' had been around for a few years. I think 'I Believe' was a leftover from Fables although it's possible they may have had it earlier in some form or another.

Wow, I love how sloppy and fucked-up that "Hyena" is. I mean, I love it on the record for the tightness of the riff wiring its way around the beat, but between the two versions you can really triangulate the drunk party band on the bootlegs, the hypnotic post-punk band on Chronic Town band, and the sunny propulsive rock band on Reckoning through Life's Rich Pageant. All the same dudes playing songs that really weren't that different, just a few minor adjustments. It's like the Cavern Club vs. Revolver.

one of the songs (Throw These Trolls Away) seems to have some of the I Believe lyrics in it.

After all this time, what I remember was it was a very pretty record but I had a roommate at the time who was poisoned with inexplicable hatred for R.E.M. For making a pretty record. Or something.

If I remember, Fables Of The Reconstruction was the last of the IRS-era records I heard, and I never could fathom why the band themselves were so down on it or why it was treated as if it was some kind of "crisis" album. I mean, sure, the band sound like they had a terrible time making it, but why I listen to 'Driver 8', 'Maps and Legends', 'Life and How To Live It', 'Green Grow The Rushes', it's just as good as any stuff they'd done up to then. I think the band have changed their mind about the record in recent years and I'm glad about that.

Yeah, I was disappointed to read that. It has such a strong sense of nature and geography, whereas other R.E.M. records address that stuff more directly. With this one, the sense of place is in the music.

It's got that Americana vibe, like Wichita Lineman.

Pulled out the album again on Friday to absorb to and from work. For the love of god I don't hear what you guys do: retreads, murk, bleh.

Relistening to Life and How to Live It, I'm struck by how much it sounds like Makoto Kawabata nicked the opening for Pink Lady Lemonade

Love this record. Their last really great record IMO (he writes, ducking).

And EveningStar, it is totally true that Driver 8 was covered by everyone, even by bands for whom it was their one "indie" song (also Radio Free Europe). But the Buck lick is the one song everyone with an acoustic guitar knew. (Even though Boxcar was a little cooler.)

read just about every paragraph

the sky is open armed
when the light is mine

Surprising poll results; these are some of the best songs on there:

"Maps and Legends" – 3:10 3
"Good Advices" – 3:30 2
"Old Man Kensey" – 4:08 0

look at his shoes

ew

at the end of the day
when there are no friends
when there are no lovers

what do you have to saaaaaaayyyy

Locomotive 8, Southern Crescent, hear the bells ring again

"Life and How to Live It" – 4:06 5

my actual favorite rem song

No album sounds like this album

So there's a dude named Pablo Hidalgo who is a longtime employee of Lucasfilm in their Story Group and (until recently) interacted a lot with fans on Twitter. His wife Kristen is also on there and her handle is @ManRaySky, which is awesome.

"Life and How to Live It" – 4:06 5

my actual favorite rem song

way up there for me, too

I've given this album more chances than most and it'll always be meh, but I do appreciate how the arrangements strive (and achieve) for a half-awake stumbling feel.

This may be their most criminally underrated album.

Embrace the murk, Soto!

At this point every R.E.M. gets called their most criminally underrated album.

Except in this case it's true

r.e.m. didn't put out a "meh" record until reveal

I feel like Maps and Legends should be higher than Green Grow the Rushes.

For me it probably would be Driver / Maps / Can't Get.

It is a pretty good record

I usually skip "Maps and Legends", too much of a drone. It's the song where I understand why someone wouldn't like this album, or even this band.

But those last three songs, or even the last four: building up to a final relief. maybe today I would rate "Auctioneer" the highest. they're songs of a band exhausted by the road that already an album earlier was at best viewed ambiguously ("another Greenville, another Magic Mart"). but rather than write about I dunno, Bob Segar style, they characteristically code their images. But they build and build, from frenzy to anxiety to a final passing.

counterpoint: not a drone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-2QlXO1SYY

And then there's "Life And How To Live It," maybe the last of their great skittery jittery rockers where it feels like the wheels are going to come off at any moment - the descendent of Chronic Town and "9-9." After this record they still did plenty of great rock tunes but they were more locked down somehow - don't quite know how to articulate this but there's a nervous energy that gradually gets concentrated into something more focused, not necessarily better or worse but different.

― Doctor Casino, Monday, October 27, 2008 11:23 PM (eleven years ago)

OTM on "Life and How to Live It". When Bill "Blue"Berry plays that disco-esque beat at such frenetic tempo (a la "Hyena", "Harborcoat", et al) it feels like a dangerously-fast downhill ride on an unfamiliar road. I also love the backup vox in the chorus, and those walk-up bass notes that precede it. "my CARPENTERS OUT AND RUNNING ABOUT!!!!..."

What's the deal with the liner notes and its listing of trakcs that aren't actually on the album ("When We Were Young")? Or did I hallucinate that like a "Wendell Gee" fever dream?