Fables of the Reconstruction, R.E.M., 1985, :39
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Was 1985 the worst year in history for music? Yes. Yes, it was. Musicologists estimate that the ratio of crap to good music produced during this year was 99 to one. Anyhoo, this is (I believe) the one R.E.M. album that I haven't listened to all the way though, barring their end-of-career shite. I read that the band itself disavowed the album (though later came to speak well of it). I think it's a perfectly good R.E.M. album. It's not one of their masterworks — "Old Man Kensey" is kind of lugubrious, and "Good Advices" rather sluggish — but neither it is somehow a failure. Actually, since over the majority of R.E.M.'s career they stuck with and refined pretty much one low-fi jangle-pop sound, I don't see how this album could stand out for obloquy. It sounds like their usual stuff to me. Favorite tracks: "Driver 8," "Can't Get There From Here," "Life and How To Live It."
