35 years ago today (7/28/86), R.E.M. released their fourth studio album Lifes Rich Pageant. The seminal college rock LP (before the Athens four-piece became MTV faves) features bushy unibrow drummer Bill Berry on the cover. Lifes Rich Pageant became the band’s most commercially successful album in the U.S., peaking at #2 and featured the single “Fall on Me” and featured ecologically conscious material (“Cuyahoga”). Watch R.E.M. perform “Begin the Begin” off Lifes Rich Pageant live in Dekalb, IL from 1986.
