Life's Rich Pageant (Remastered) - R.E.M.

REM tried something a little different for their 4th album, getting in Don Gehman to produce. He was mainly famous for his work with John Cougar Mellancamp. Maybe the band wanted to create a more traditional kind of rock album, rather than the distinctly indie / college radio sound of their previous work. Whatever their reasons, I think “Life’s rich pageant” does mark a tendency towards a more mainstream sound, in many respects.
...(from “A shot in the dark”), but why REM chose it as the title to their fourth album is, like Michael Stipe’s vocals at the time, about as clear as mud. It’s not, for one thing, a mumbling Clouseau-like collection – it is a rich mix of tracks, though, and contains some of my favourite REM songs. At the time of its release, REM were still a cult band, in the UK at any rate, they were yet to have a chart hit here (that ... more

REM tried something a little different for their 4th album, getting in Don Gehman to produce. He was mainly famous for his work with John Cougar Mellancamp. Maybe the band wanted to create a more traditional kind of rock album, rather than the distinctly indie / college radio sound of their previous work. Whatever their reasons, I think “Life’s rich pageant” does mark a tendency towards a more mainstream sound, in many respects.

The title’s a phrase from Inspector Clouseau (from “A shot in the dark”), but why REM chose it as the title to their fourth album is, like Michael Stipe’s vocals at the time, about as clear as mud. It’s not, for one thing, a mumbling Clouseau-like collection – it is a rich mix of tracks, though, and contains some of my favourite REM songs. At the time of its release, REM were still a cult band, in the UK at any rate, they were yet to have a chart hit here (that would come with “The one I love” from the album that was to follow “Life’s rich pageant”).

For me, the immediate stand out tracks were three which had completely different styles:
“Fall on me” – a slow song, with AUDIBLE lyrics from Stipe (and even, on the video, subtitles so we could all tell exactly what he was saying – in actual fact these were the main feature of the video, which otherwise presented simple black and white images, no band shots). The lyrics were revealed to be beautifully obtuse: “Feathers hit the ground before the weight can leave the air” stunned me, although I wasn’t sure exactly why. I also love Mike Mills’ harmonies – which always an REM trademark, but especially effective on this song. Mills always insisted that he never understood what Stipe’s lyrics meant, so he just made up his own background vocals, and here he sings “what is it up in the air for?” and “It’s over, it’s over…” offering a parallel line of thought to the lead vocal. I’m not sure whether it’s meant to, but the song reminds me of the Chicken Licken story.
“Just a touch” – a burst of metal really chaotic and energetic. The vocals were recorded in one take, and it really is impossible to know what the lyrics are, but who cares? Those hyper “woo-woo”s, convey everything you might want to hear in a lyric. It’s actually an old REM song, resurrected from 1980, and is about the day that Elvis Presley died – though you wouldn’t know by listening to the track.
“Superman” is an obscure cover of a song by 60s band The Clique (no, I’d never heard of them either), with Mills on lead vocal. Quite simply – superb power pop.
OK so those were the three tracks that blew me away – and they still do today. I enjoy the rest of the album too, and think it’s rather sad that it does seem to get rather ignored nowadays.

“Life’s rich pageant” includes some idealistic themes, with plenty of subtle politics: “Fall on me” (pollution), “Flowers of Guatemala” (US imperialism) and “Cuyahoga” (“Let’s put our heads together, and start a new country up”), and certainly prepared the way for “Green” and world domination.

In conclusion: an excellent album from REM, but then, I think that just about everything they’ve done is excellent. It's not REM at their exceptional best, but "Life's Rich Pageant" still deserves the full 5 stars from me.
 

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