I only picked up the R.E.M. story in 1987 when Richard sent me a tape of Life's Rich Pageant, and I have still yet to hear Murmur and Reckoning, which lots of fans say are classics. Is that a terrible admission? Should someone give me detention? This album was my one attempt at working backwards from where I came in. Why did I choose this one? Possibly because I like the title Fables of the Reconstruction/Reconstruction of the Fables, or some other equally trivial reason.
Perhaps it was after buying this that I came up with the every-other-album theory about R.E.M. (mentioned previously), for this one, followed by Document and then Out of Time, is one of a series of lacklustre albums, while Pageant, Green and Automatic for the People are, in my scheme of things, the bona fide classics.
Lustre is definitely one of the main things this record lacks, as though it were mumbling into the upturned collar of its greatcoat. I wonder what say producer Joe Boyd had in this, and whether he was chosen on the recommendation of Michael Stipe's friend Natalie Merchant, who employed Boyd on the wonderful Wishing Chair at around the same time, or whether it was the other way round.
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