Lifes Rich Pageant  by R.E.M.

R.E.M. happily reach their fourth studio album of their career in 1986 with Lifes Rich Pageant. The album contains twelve compositions, which stick to the alternative rock sound of that era and expand to jungle pop in some cases. The producer of the album this time is Don Gehman, and Lifes Rich Pageant will be released by I.R.S. Records.

The quartet from Athens, Georgia presents twelve new songs that are their own compositions, except for Superman, which closes the album and is a cover of a song by The Clique from 1969. The first form of the album started in January 1986 at John Keane's Studio in their hometown Athens as a demo. Eventually, the four members of R.E.M. spent April and May 1986 at Belmont Mall Studio in Indiana - which belonged to John Mellencamp - preparing what would become their first album to gain initial recognition beyond the U.S. The two official singles from the album were Fall On Me and the aforementioned Superman.

Lifes Rich Pageant reached No. 21 on the Billboard, where it remained for 32 weeks in the Top 200. In the United Kingdom, it managed to reach No. 43, while the album's sales in Canada exceeded 100,000 copies, and the album became gold.