One of the great '80s albums receives the deluxe-edition treatment this month. Andy Gill raved about R.E.M.'s fourth long-player in NME on 16 August, 1986--Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages
The only band that mutters, as an American commentator wittily described R.E.M., are back, and not before time, too. The past few years have seen scores of REMade, REModelled groups spawned across the length and breadth of North America; but most just hawking B-movie versions of staple R.E.M. styles and themes. The arrival of Lifes Rich Pageant (don't ask me where the apostrophe went) brings things back into focus again, and indicates a few more dry-rock riverbeds where water runs once more.
That's not as spurious an image as it first sounds, in this case. The centrepiece of Lifes Rich Pageant is 'Cuyahoga,' an observation on the river that runs through northern Ohio, linking its Indian past with soured pioneer ideals and a desire for rebirth and completeness: "Let's put our heads
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