The year was 1985 and I was a mere 14 years old. For my age, I was really into music, not only owning more albums than most people around me but I actually knew them inside and out. I was also silently developing my singing skills by singing along to albums at full blast in my bedroom, assuredly driving my mother insane. A bit to her credit, she never complained about my singing, just the volume of the music itself, by banging excessively on the adjoining wall while yelling "...turn it down!!!"
At this point in time, I was looking for something new to listen to, different if you will. It was around May of 1985 and I first chose to buy the Icicle Works self titled album from 1984. This initially was a total clunker to me as I simply couldn't get into it. Now, later on, this album would do a 180 degree turn and become one of the big albums for me but initially I couldn't get my head around it at all. Because of this, two months later, I went on the hunt again and the band that everyone kept talking about was R.E.M., someone that I knew by name only and nothing more, and also their latest album, "Fables of the Reconstruction", was getting rather slammed in the reviews of the likes of Spin and Rolling Stone at the time.
I used to accompany my mom when she would grocery shop and the store we would go to the most, one in Phoenix called Smitty's, was one of those early grocery stores that branched in multiple directions, including a small record and cassette area. Ironically, I bought many very essential releases for my life from Smitty's, of all places, and it was on one of these occurrences that I saw "Fables..." on cassette. The cover art on the tape version was rather odd and minimalist, if you're not aware of that, and I debated quite a bit about taking the plunge and buying this album without hearing a single note of it, including not even knowing what the band sounded like. Needless to say, this purchase changed my life. "Fables..." was a huge hit with me at the time during the summer of '85 and, the next thing I knew, I was buying "Murmur" and "Reckoning" all within the next 8-12 months, knowing all three inside and out.
Ah, but it was the summer of 1986 when it really happened. I remember I was in our pool, with the radio on the side blasting a local station, when I first heard them announce the new R.E.M. album and play "I Believe". Even on my crappy most likely one speaker radio system the song blew me away. Stipe's voice had greatly changed to a grittier, more confident sound, and was much more present than on any of the previous albums. The electric guitars sounded phenomenal, super crisp and clear and very, very driving, and the song in general had an edge that I'd never quite heard before. I was completely stunned...and super excited by the release of this album.
As the release date of "Lifes Rich Pageant" neared, a radio station in town played the entire album late at night one Friday or Saturday, and I made a pact with myself to only listen to 1-2 tracks since I didn't want it to ruin the release for me. I mainly wanted to see if the album started as good as the song "I Believe". Needless to say, I had to literally force myself to stop listening in the middle of "These Days" because I couldn't believe what I was hearing. To say R.E.M. totally rocked was an understatement.
When the album was finally released, it became the most important album of my life at that time, and I'm sure that I wore my cassette version completely out. Everything about the album was perfect; the title, the cover art, the font, the song order, and the mixing and production. I mean, this was one of the very first perfect albums I had ever heard where I wouldn't change a goddamn thing. R.E.M. very quickly became MY band, the one that I followed religiously and swore by. I think it's fair to say that I became quite obsessed with them.
In September of 1986, the Pageantry tour kicked off and R.E.M. scheduled a stop in the Phoenix area at the Mesa Amphitheater. This was a pivotal moment in my life because my few concert going experiences up until now had been shaky at best. I was so incredibly motivated to see R.E.M. in person, though, that I put my fears aside and tried to figure out how to get to this show. I was only 15 at the time so I couldn't drive, etc., and my (older) sister and I had just had a minor argument and so she was deliberately trying to be an ass and refused to go to the show. I thought I was screwed and needless to say incredibly upset. The show was on September 23rd, just 7 days before my 15th birthday, and seeing how depressed I was about it, my mom offered to do the kindest thing I think she ever did for me, kind of like my version of the Red Ryder BB Gun from "A Christmas Story"... She offered to drop me off at the theater so I could go to the show on my own. Holy sh*t. Needless to say, I was beyond excited but also scared to death because I had never done something like this before.
This show has been in the top 3 concerts I've ever seen in my entire life pretty much since that time. Why? Well, the combination of trying to figure out how to go to the show, then being dropped off and alone really for the first time in such a manner, and to top it all off...it rained, and it was an outdoor show. Many people left and so only the true diehards were there. Guadalcanal Diary opened the show, at the time touring for "Jamboree", another album I would go on to purchase, and while they played "Pray for Rain" the thunder was rumbling all around us. It was something else. By the time R.E.M. came out, it was raining pretty hard and after starting with a very soft and gentle rendition of "So. Central Rain", they launched right into "Just a Touch" full blast...and holy wah...the people that had decided to stay were rockin' through the rain like never before.
To this day, I still maintain that "Lifes Rich Pageant" is by far R.E.M.'s best album and it was probably the best time in their history since they were still a small band but looking at the big time just around the corner. As it was, the concert the next year for the "Document" album, while it was good, it simply had a different style and feel than the previous since it felt much more choreographed. The Pageantry tour still felt like a garage band just doing their thing at their high point.
It's almost hard to talk about stand out songs on an album like this. What song isn't good?! R.E.M. always liked to use the term of "filler" songs, meaning those tracks that just fill in spaces but are kind of the odd man out kind of thing, but I'd be hard pressed to actually find filler on "...Pageant", or at least it doesn't sound like filler to me. I'd also say that this album started my life long love of album artwork and it stands very prominently in the list of best album covers ever (I have a large record store ad version of the cover on my studio wall). Also, this album makes the very top of my list for best production and mix jobs ever. I would kill to be able to mix an album that sounds as good as this.
Given all of the above, I feel like "Lifes Rich Pageant" is one of the more forgotten albums in R.E.M.'s discography and that seems almost hard to get your head around. Those that argue that "Automatic for the People" or dare I say "Out of Time" is their best album are, well, in my book at least, completely nuts, especially on the latter which is one of my least favorites (the former being a great album, mind you, but different, in a much more experimental sort of way). To me, "...Pageant" almost set the standard for a what a modern rock album should be and to this very day I still completely marvel at it. "Fall on Me" has to be one of the greatest radio friendly hits ever made but songs like "Begin the Begin", "These Days", "Cuyahoga", "I Believe", "Just a Touch", and so on...really make this album the masterwork that it is.
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