{"id":2672,"date":"2011-07-27T00:02:52","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T07:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=2672"},"modified":"2011-07-27T00:03:19","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T07:03:19","slug":"r-e-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/07\/r-e-m\/","title":{"rendered":"R.E.M."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2673\" title=\"REM-M-Review-June2011\" src=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/REM-M-Review-June2011.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/REM-M-Review-June2011.jpg 400w, https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/REM-M-Review-June2011-300x187.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/>REISSUE<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>R<\/strong><strong>.E.M. <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong><em>Lifes Rich Pageant (25th Anniversary Edition)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[I.R.S.\/Capitol]<\/p>\n<p>While the following year\u2019s <em>Document<\/em> would be the group\u2019s true commercial breakthrough, the stage for that momentous event had been set by its predecessor, 1986\u2019s <em>Lifes Rich Pageant<\/em>. The indie-rock heroes signaled a willingness to meet the mainstream halfway\u2014OK, at least a little bit of the way\u2014by tapping John Mellencamp producer Don Gehman. Singer Michael Stipe\u2019s lyrics were here heard for the first time without a layer of obfuscatory sonic murk, allowing listeners to pick out an environmentalist theme on songs like \u201cFall on Me\u201d and \u201cCuyahoga.\u201d The group even flashed its sense of humor with a cover of the Clique\u2019s \u201cSuperman,\u201d bass player Mike Mills stepping up to sing lead with tongue-in-cheek bravado.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to a punchy remastering job, this reissue adds a disc of demos recorded in R.E.M.\u2019s native Athens, Ga., before the band uprooted itself and headed for Mellencamp\u2019s Indiana studio. Among the most intriguing items are early iterations of songs that would turn up on later R.E.M. releases, including \u201cBad Day,\u201d \u201cAll the Right Friends\u201d and \u201cKing of Birds\u201d (rendered here as an instrumental dubbed \u201cMarch Song\u201d). Of the songs that did make <em>Pageant\u2019s<\/em> final cut, the inchoate \u201cFall on Me\u201d in particular demonstrates how far the tune had to go before reaching studio fruition. One wishes that the B-sides and other ephemera recorded during the sessions and included on previous compilations were present here as well, but this latest repackaging of an early R.E.M. landmark offers plenty for fans to dig into. \u2013Chris Neal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>REISSUE R.E.M. Lifes Rich Pageant (25th Anniversary Edition) [I.R.S.\/Capitol] While the following year\u2019s Document would be the group\u2019s true commercial breakthrough, the stage for that momentous event had been set by its predecessor, 1986\u2019s Lifes Rich Pageant. The indie-rock heroes signaled a willingness to meet the mainstream halfway\u2014OK, at least a little bit of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[2117,196,514,2119,2118,1636,2116,2120,325,2115],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2672"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2676,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2672\/revisions\/2676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}