As a college student in the mid-eighties, we posed the question around the dorm room --- "Did REM make college radio, or did college radio make REM?" Fables is perhaps REM's last hurrah in the college music genre before their foray into an embracing pop culture. After Fables, gone were the twangy folk strains of Peter Buck, the driving bass of Mills, and the incoherent yet hauting howlings of Stipe. Fables is perhaps best experienced as a soundtrack of a drive through the South. The tempos of the first three tracks build to an energy-filled "Life and How to Live It" before taking a short breather with "Old Man Kensey." "Green Grow the Rushes" and "Good Advices" offer introspective commentaries in nicely sonorous melodies. Listen to this album while in a car, being sure to stay off the main roads. Best experienced in mid-summer, turn off the air conditioner and roll down the windows. Notice the landscape around rich in kudzu, Loblolly pines, and red clay. Fables is a perfect accompanyment to the passing sights, smells, and even sounds in the modern South.

I like all of R.E.M.'s 1980s albums, but their 1985 release Fables of the Reconstruction is my favorite. It is, in my opinion, their most solid album. The other records had at least one or two tracks that I was not crazy about, but this album does not let up. If I had to pick a least favorite song, it would be the banjo-driven "Wendell Gee" which is a little slow, but I can't say it is one of R.E.M.'s weakest songs. The rest of the album is awesome.

"Feeling Gravity's Pull" and "Maps and Legends" fit well side-by-side. They both have a unique, innovative sound, especially "Gravity." "Maps" is my favorite of the two and is, perhaps, my favorite track on this album. It is very upbeat and has excellent use of backing vocals at the chorus. "Driver 8" was one of R.E.M.'s best singles. You feel like your rattling through the countryside on a train when you listen to it. It is my second favorite track off Fables and is one of my all-time R.E.M. favorites. "Life and How to Live It" is a great, upbeat track. Stipe's wailing is a little much at times but it doesn't detract from the song like the wailing on "Just a Touch" off Lifes Rich Pageant. "Old Man Kensey" is a darker, slow song with the usual beautiful guitar work.

The other single off Fables was "Can't Get There From Here" which is an upbeat, fun track. "Green Grow the Rushes" and "Good Advices" are slower, pleasant tracks. "Kohoutek" is an interesting track. It has a very full sound and a lot of depth. Each time I listen to it, I like it better. The rocker "Auctioneer (Another Engine)" is another one of my favorites. If you only have R.E.M.'s singles compilations and are thinking about buying some of their 1980s studio releases, I recommend starting with Fables of the Reconstruction. It is one of their most accessible albums and is their most solid. It will leave you wanting to get their entire 1980s back catalogue!

At first I didn't like this album. I found it too dark, too murky, too chaotic. Nowadays, I love "Fables of the Reconstruction/Reconstruction of the Fables", probably for much the same reasons. It's certainly one of R.E.M's least accessible albums - certainly not one to recommend to someone in the hope of converting them (try "Lifes Rich Pageant" or "Green" for this). "Fables" is like a good wine - it matures with age and this is perhaps the chief reason why it is so good - it stands the test of time, especially so coming from that unfortunate period known as the eighties. The opening track is stunning - the three jarring notes that open (and recur throughout) "Feeling Gravitys Pull" are indeed memorable - the song itself is filled with terrific imagery ("oceans fall and mountains drift"), seemingly about the beauty and restrictive power of nature. Thematically the rest of the album, as the circular title suggests, is about legends and tales of the deep South. There's folk rock ("Maps and Legends"), the manic "Life and How to Live It" and the cacophonic (and somewhat sluggish) "Old Man Kensey", all inspired by local personalities. "Driver 8" is gorgeous and the first single, "Can't Get There From Here" is probably the most out of place song, being upbeat, funky and happy. The songs which I always thought somewhat muddled and impenetrable, namely "Kohoutek" and "Auctioneer (Another Engine)" I now find to be really enjoyable, while "Green Grow the Rushes" and "Good Advices", two ballads which are soothing and unsettling at the same time, I have always loved. "Wendell Gee" is a song that has often been demonised, but I find it to be an appropriate ending - a quiet, folksy ditty that is a gentle way to wrap up a sometimes stressful and unnerving album, but staying faithful to the Southern theme. It is an extremely well crafted album, but one that, as is the case with my own experience, may require a few listenings to fully appreciate.

I remember the day I bought Fables. Late spring '85, a gray sky overhead with intermittent sprinkles falling, a downpour could have come at any moment, it seemed. I was outdoors, riding a ten speed five miles to the record store on release day to buy the new album by R.E.M., which had become my new favorite band after a college friend of mine introduced me to their music the summer before... Reckoning, which I loved immediately, purchased, and promptly wore the cassette out. Murmur, just the same... bought it on vinyl, made two cassette copies for myself just in case the vinyl wore out. There was such a magic about this band: the sublime melodies, the mysterious lyrics and vocals, so hypnotic you just had to listen repeatedly, yet you could never tire of hearing the songs. I had heard advance rumblings that this album was a departure from Murmur and Reckoning, and as soon as "Feeling Gravity's Pull" resonated through the headphones as I began the journey homeward (thankfully the rain did not come) it was indeed true... this was a departure. The drone of cellos, the murky aura, the downcast nature of the majority of the songs was a far cry from the generally bright and upbeat Reckoning and the rock-folk-punkiness of Murmur. But I loved it anyway, and wore out the cassette as well, and replaced it with the CD as soon as I could afford a player (they were still quite expensive in those days). I went on to purchase every R.E.M. album that followed, and after all of the years that have passed, through all of their stylistic twists and turns, Fables is the one R.E.M. album that still takes me to another place, stirs my emotions more than any of the others, even the equally somber Automatic For The People. There is distance, desperation, and longing in so many of these songs, "Feeling Gravity's Pull", "Maps And Legends", "Life And How To Live It", "Old Man Kensey", "Green Grow The Rushes", "Good Advices", and "Wendell Gee" that transcends most anything else you will hear. You can just feel the loneliness of a band that was in a dreary place during the sessions, far away from home (England), through Stipe's vocals, Buck's yearning guitar jangle, and Mills' aching harmony vocals. And you feel along with them...in fact, I still often shed tears during "Good Advices" when I hear "Home is a long way away...", the vocals are so full of loneliness you can't help but cry sometimes. Some people think of the South when they listen to this album. Yes, it does have that sound. When I listen to it, I tend to think of gray rainy days, regrets I may have, separation from the ones I love, and a longingness to go back home, wherever I may be.

Listening to this album today, I have a hard time understanding what critics were disappointed about in 1985. Now Fables may have not continued the fierce momentum of Murmur and Reckoning, but it is still a solid, moving album. Some of the old Rolling Stone reviews complained of sections of the record (especially the second half) as being "boring." Where did that idea come from?

With three superb joints opening the record ("Feeling Gravity's Pull," "Maps and Legends," "Driver 8") and satisfying numbers carrying it through, I say that Fables of the Reconstruction is one of the best albums in rock and roll in the past twenty-five years. It is surely among the best of R.E.M's career. The solid running streak of their first eight albums is a milestone that is nearly impossible for the average recording artist to achieve.

To be fair though, music listeners today have the benefit of hindsight with regards to assessing R.E.M's career. It was tough indeed to say just where the band was going to go in 1985, or the rest of rock and roll for that manner. What I know is this: Fables is as fresh today as it was twenty years ago.