R.E.M. - Life's Rich Pageant

Numbered Limited Edition 180-gram LP from Mobile Fidelity

Half-Speed Mastered From the Original Master Tapes: Mobile Fidelity's LP Exposes Benefits of Cleaner, More Forceful Production

Includes Hit Singles "Fall on Me," "Superman," and "Begin the Begin"

Athens, Georgia, band R.E.M. were one of the most influential bands in the formation of alternative rock and indie, and became one of the biggest rock groups in the world in the early 1990s. This 1986 release, the band's fourth full-length LP, is in the eyes of several reviewers, the quartet's finest over a career that's spanned three decades.

For a generation that came of age in the 80s, as well almost everyone that came within earshot of its contents, this Georgia band's 1986 landmark effort remains an utterly distinctive sonic blend of elegance and whimsy, seriousness and humor, artfulness and accessibility. It's here that R.E.M. evolves beyond its college-rock identity albeit retains its youthful innocence, here where Michael Stipe's enigmatic vocals finally attain the same level of prominence as the group's potent rhythm section.

Half-speed mastered from the original master tapes and meticulously pressed at RTI, Mobile Fidelity's 180-gram LP version of this masterwork allows the record's expressive punchiness, dynamic extension, treble-driven jangle, and more forceful playing to be experienced as originally intended. Indeed, Life's Rich Pageant is notable for its production: Board operator Don Gehman lends the group a harder edge and cleaner sound than it had in the past. On this audiophile-grade reissue, the results come to the fore in the form of contemporary-sounding arrangements, cohesive structures, and cleaner tonalities. If anything, this LP helps make the case for the many that Life's Rich Pageant — not Murmur or Reckoning — stands as the band's finest hour.

Lyrically, R.E.M. hits upon more concrete themes, and while Stipe's occasionally mumbled singing still lacks clear enunciation — a trait that adds to the songs' mystique and surrounding textures — there's no mistaking the overt political and environmental sentiments in tunes such as the hit "Fall on Me" and gorgeous "Cuyahoga." Similarly, "Flowers of Guatemala" epitomizes R.E.M.'s hallmark ability to turn allegory into dreamy poetry, the counterpoint melodies, atmospheric guitar fills, and majestic bridges all enchanting devices of a band that manages to get its point across via spiritual performances and indirect suggestiveness.

Such qualities lie at the heart of Life's Rich Pageant, on which subtle details and concerted purposes unite to make transcendent, lasting art. Bolder, more pronounced, refined, and immediate than that on previous efforts, Mike Mills' bass lines and Peter Buck's swelling guitar passages augment the hard-driving beats as well as Stipe's increasingly upfront vocals.