Once more the strength of R.E.M. as a band pushing back against their label is clear. Lifes Rich Pageant is another natural growth for their sound, a thrilling one that sets the group up with some understated yet all-time great tracks. Their fourth studio album is a continuation of the extremely high bar set by previous material, with more of a focus on that alternative rock style. Catchy hooks and a clearer message in Michael Stype’s lyrics are a sign of where the band were headed next. You can hear the influence producer Don Gehman has on the album, shifting the style away from the more jangle-oriented, out-there sound of the excellent first three albums. What he does on this sole encounter with the band is bring them to the forefront of hard rock stylings. It’s a bold push from the band, whose sound is wholly different and remains that way for the albums to follow, but it’s also what gave the band their break.
Standout song Fall On Me may take much of the praise for the early part of the album, but it’s Begin the Begin that sets the scene best of all. It serves its purpose as an excellent opener, but it also brings on that hard rock influence the band had been introduced to by Gehman. It makes all the difference for not just the sound R.E.M. can offer, especially on a great instrumental piece like Cuyahoga, but in how Stipe writes. There are some repetitive spots like Hyena but what follows are some ambitious, magnificent pieces of work. Underneath the Bunker is a superb example of how a short, sharp piece of work can be used as a stopgap between the repetition of hard rock and the comfortable, slower styles of the B-side. Underneath the Bunker isn’t just this break from one tone to the next, but a tremendous example of R.E.M. at their instrumental best.
Instrumental breaks are what the band does best on Lifes Rich Pageant, an album filled with experimental moments. I Believe is a great example of this, a song which goes all in on the jangle pop sounds without ever feeling as though it was headed in that direction. There’s much to love about that suddenness. Lifes Rich Pageant levels out into the comfortable, alternative rock tones which would guide the very best of R.E.M., with all-time great track What if We Give it Away? a real standout. Instrumentally rich and consistent with the tone R.E.M. would so often provide. What follows is equally as impressive material like the danceable rock flourish of Just a Touch. What Lifes Rich Pageant ends on is nowhere close as thrilling as the songs preceding it, but there are tender moments to be found within that work.
Ambitious once again because Stipe and the band have been given the space to create with whatever they wish in mind. They’re pushed into a genre styling that they had flirted with in the past but never quite endured. Superman is a bit of a dud but the bulk of what precedes this is a sound that R.E.M. would use across the rest of their career, or certainly with their hits. It’s a phenomenal listen, is Lifes Rich Pageant, an album which doesn’t have the consistency of their previous releases, but does have a nerve to it. A bolder risk, a larger pitch for the band as creative spirits, that’s what you get with this release. The group would make good on this feeling time and time again, though it’s in moving away from Gehman’s production that they make this feeling stick.
