R.E.M. - Lifes Rich Pageant

Puts the "rock" in "jangle-rock"

This is a very good album. Some people think it's the group's best, and indeed it's up there - for my part, I prefer the damn sellout (Yeah, Exhuming McCarthey's a commercial song, all right) Document. However, this is probably their second-best album. It pounds even the most acclaimed of the group's '90s work into the ground, too. I mean, Out of Time? A glorified single release for Losing My Religion? Get outta town! And Automatic for the People? A bunch of really good singles and absolutely wretched album tracks? It doesn't have a chance! And as for Around the Sun...

Come on, do you need anyone here to tell you that this is better than Around the Sun?

Anyway, let's get down to business here. The fog that was Fables of the Reconstruction had lifted, and in its place was an album that actually (gasp!) had some electric guitar, (no way!) lyrics with meaning, and (oh my god!) discernable vocals. For R.E.M. in 1986, this was as weird as weird could get - especially compared to Fables of the Reconstruction, which had little of the first and second and none of the third. The rockers are all pretty good, too: Begin the Begin, These Days, Hyena, Just a Touch, I Believe, and (my favorite on the record) their cover of Superman, sung by Mike Mills, all can be considered among the best of early R.E.M. (which basically means "The best of R.E.M."). Now there are still folk songs: the Fairport Convention-like Swan Swan H, and the twin enivronmentalist songs Fall on Me ("Please don't... FAAAAALL ON MEEEEE! FAAAALL ON MEEEE!") and Cuyahoga, and those are great too! All of those songs could've made this the group's best album, but they have to ruin it with three tracks I haven't brought up yet, because they suck and I don't like songs that suck. There's an instrumental (Underneath the Bunker), and R.E.M.'s not a group known for being brilliant musicians. There's a faux-Latin thing (The Flowers of Guatemala) that turned out to be a total flop, and a poor, shoddy folk-rocker, What if We Gave It Away. It's still a great album in spite of those three, so pick it up if you like the group. August 24, 2007

A slicker, harder rocking R.E.M. and one of their best

After listeners struggled to hear Michael Stipe's words on their first three albums (an intentional mixing decision), suddenly everything he had to say was crystal clear...well, not counting the frequently cryptic messages. But the passages and songs with the clearest purposes prove to be something of a mistake. What little there is to clearly comprehend is often heavy-handed, even preachy at times. Despite good intentions on environmentalism, does anyone want to listen to a college radio hero standing on a soapbox?

Maybe that's one of the reasons why Lifes Rich Pageant is one of R.E.M.'s most forgotten records (despite selling better than their first three albums). Another could be a dearth of popular tunes, but then again, the harder-rocking power pop of songs like "Begin the Begin" and "Superman" seem perfectly adjusted to the waves of radio America. Can this album match their first two efforts of the decade? Not quite. Should it be rediscovered by a generation that knows R.E.M. mostly by "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts"? Definitely.

Best cuts: "Begin the Begin," "Fall on Me," "I Believe," "Superman," "The Flowers of Guatemala," "What If We Give It Away," "Swan Swan H," "Cuyahoga," "Just a Touch" July 5, 2007

If you must have and REM record, get this one!

This is good stuff. I was never a huge REM fan but I did like them because back in the day there were pretty cool. They had a cool stripped down sound that was unconventional at the time. What that means is they did not exactly rock my socks off but they were playing actual guitars, drums and basses instead of a synthesizer and drum machine. In my mind that was enough to make them pretty cool. My sister had Reckoning (also pretty cool) and Fables of the Reconstruction (which sucked) so when Lifes Rich Pageant came out I was pretty familiar with REM and kind of liked some of their stuff but felt funny about it because they were my sisters band. The video for Fall on Me is what sold me on the record and I am glad it did because this (as I have said) is good stuff. Buck's guitar had some snarl to it and the drums are heavy and driving - much more so than before or since. As I have admitted, I am not a huge REM fan but have never stopped liking this album.
June 22, 2007

Soundtrack to my early love life

Sitting in my car in front of her house, 2am on a summer's evening, listening to this album. Sneaking into the backyard and waking her with pebbles against the window pane.

1987 January 24, 2007

What on EARTH is that SOUND?!?!?!?!??!

The opening riff of "Begin The Begin", the opening track to Life's Rich Pageant, floored me the first time I heard it, and still does today. I think i took about 10 plays for me to even get halfway through the song the first time because I kept backing it up to hear that near-east/Indian-sounding twang, almost sounding as if George Harrison had revved up his old sitar somehow with high octane speed.
LRP isn't REM at its best, however. It IS REM at its most preachy. Though many may argue that the message got watered down in subsequent years and releases, the fact is that was done with what I have to call calculated efficiency. No one (with an ounce of dignity) wants to listen to Michael Stipe stand on a soapbox and rant at them non-stop for 45 minutes.
No matter how awesome the sound of the music is, which it truly is on this album. It's big, it's beefy, it's their hardest-rocking album prior to Monster, and it's one of their better records...on the whole.
But remember something in that I am not alone in this assessment. Rolling Stone - in the mid 1990s - called this album the NADIR of Stipe's songwriting. It's just too preachy. After this the story stayed the same, the method in which it was delivered - lyrically and musically - became more user-friendly. If no one is listening to you yelling, make them hear what you're saying by pleasing them.
It worked, and I've no qualms with that.
As for this record itself, it's a jump in an ice cold pool on a 100 degree day in terms of going from early REM albums to this stage of the band's career. The drums are so prevalent in the mix they seem to obliterate the previous incarnation of the band's sound.
"Begin the Begin", "Fall On Me", "I Believe", and "Just A Touch" are some of their best tunes to listen to, even though some of the lyrical content is - as previously stated - a little heavy-handed. Though I may sound a bit harsh on this matter, I do love this album, and in fact, the guitar part for "Swan Swan H" - though it's subject matter is morose and dreary - was used as the wedding march by my first wife in our wedding. November 28, 2006

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