For October, the Mental Jukebox is dialing it way back to the eighties and going deep. Deep cuts have always been an important element of music listening to me because they’re often the songs that resonate with me most. Deep cuts are usually the ones that the true fans appreciate most. I like my singles and hits, but I love my deep cuts.
Life’s Rich Pageant has been described as the critical point in time when the band began to cross over to reach a wider fan base. The reality is that Document was really the album that put the band on the map with non-college rock fans. Still, you look back at Life’s Rich Pageant and see highly accessible classics like “Fall On Me”, “Begin The Begin” and “Superman” side by side with R.E.M. classics like “Swan Swan H”.
Buried deep in the back half of Life’s Rich Pageant, R.E.M. sounds more like a campfire song than a rock song, a strong veer into a more reflective, somber R.E.M. before the vibrant pop of “Superman” closes things out. Of the two tracks, “Swan Swan H” is the one that truly defines the R.E.M. sound in terms of the melody’s composition, the minor guitar chord playing and Stipe’s wailing, arching vocals. It’s a late relic of the band’s unique, original sound.
“A pistol hot cup of rhyme. The whiskey is water, the water is wine.”