Lifes Rich Pageant

Performer: R.E.M.
Engineer: Don Gehman; Greg Edward; Ross Hogarth
Producer: Don Gehman
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: The songs on LIFE'S RICH PAGEANT are listed out of order on the packaging. Two songs on the record, "Underneath The Bunker" and a cover of the Clique's "Superman," aren't listed at all. R.E.M.: Michael Stipe (vocals); Peter Buck (guitar); Mike Mills (bass); Bill Berry (drums). Recorded at The Belmont Mall, Belmont, Indiana. Personnel: Michael Stipe (vocals); Peter Buck (guitar); Bill Berry (drums). Audio Mixer: Ross Hogarth. Recording information: Belmont Mall Studio, Belmont, IN. Coming after the dark and arty FABLES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION, 1986's LIFE'S RICH PAGEANT was R.E.M.'s first tentative step towards the rock & roll mainstream. At the time, Don Gehman's production sounded shockingly bright and commercial, but, in hindsight, the album is clearly a dry run for the impending commercial pinnacle of GREEN, OUT OF TIME, and AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE. The gorgeous "Fall on Me" (an ecological meditation featuring a spectacularly pretty chorus sung in counterpoint by Michael Stipe and Mike Mills) remains the record's best-known track. However, it is a quartet of harder-rocking songs--"Begin the Begin," "Cuyahoga," "Just a Touch" (which quotes Patti Smith's 1975 deconstruction of "My Generation") and a giddy cover of the Clique's psych-pop obscurity "Superman" sung by Mills--that points towards the Georgia band's more emotionally direct and musically loose future. LIFE'S RICH PAGEANT has been largely overshadowed by its more commercially successful follow-ups, but it remains one of R.E.M.'s strongest albums.

CMJ (1/5/04, p.18) - Ranked #12 in CMJ's "Top 20 Most-Played Albums of 1986" NME (Magazine) (9/6/97, p.53) - "...Rickenbacker jangles and increasingly audible lyrics to the fore, ...PAGEANT is the sound of an REM completely jarred off with their 'indie darlings' tag and duly picking up proper FM airplay..."

This Athens band's initial mix of Velvet Underground strum, Byrds-like Rickenbacker jangle, and charismatically oblique singing, became the sound of the 1980s as legions of bands followed suit. But even as imitators codified R.E.M.'s approach into the money-making "alternative rock" sound, the group refused to stand still, constantly changing and developing without ever abandoning their underground principles. Somehow they became superstars along the way, but it's never affected their commitment to their music. In 1997, drummer Bill Berry left the band, but Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills soldiered on in his absence.

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