Reckoning

Reckoning was recorded at Reflection Sound in Charlotte with Don Dixon and Mitch Easter, the team behind Murmur. It reached No. 27 in the United States and No. 91 in Britain, and went Gold in the United States. Howard Finster handled the art direction. When NME ranked every R.E.M. album, it put Reckoning first and called it the most fun record the band ever made.

The recording began on December 8, 1983, in two eight-day stretches. The sleeve says 14 days, Buck sometimes said 11, and the producers disputed both: Dixon said over 25 days and Easter about 20. Dixon used binaural recording on several tracks, with a homemade binaural head built from a cardboard box and two microphones. In November 1983 the band had recorded 22 songs in San Francisco with producer Elliot Mazer before choosing to return to Dixon and Easter. I.R.S. pressed for a more commercial record, and Buck said the band tried to finish before the label's people came to listen. Stipe's recitation recorded during 7 Chinese Bros. was released as Voice of Harold, a B-side of So. Central Rain that later appeared on Dead Letter Office in 1987.

Pretty Persuasion and (Don't Go Back To) Rockville had been in the live set since October 1980. Rockville was rearranged with a country rock feel as a tribute to the band's legal advisor Bertis Downs IV. Camera addresses the death of a friend from Athens in a car crash. For the cover Stipe drew a two-headed snake and gave it to Howard Finster to paint. The record is also titled File Under Water, and its sides are labelled L and R. So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry) reached No. 85 on the Hot 100 in May 1984. Rockville followed in August and did not chart. The album went to No. 1 on college radio airplay charts. Rolling Stone gave it four stars, and Mat Snow of NME called it another classic. The 2009 25th anniversary edition added a bonus disc of a concert at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago on July 7, 1984.