R.E.M.

Add Date: July 12 

Artist: R.E.M. 

Album: Lifes Rich Pageant (reissue) 

Label: Capitol 

Genre: Rock 

Comments: Lifes Rich Pageant marked the beginning of R.E.M.'s mainstream success back in 1986, with the album achieving gold status and reaching No. 21 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Twenty-five years later, the alternative rock band is celebrating their most outward-looking record with an expanded anniversary 2-CD and digital edition of the album. The new edition features the digitally remastered original LP, 19 previously unreleased demo recordings cut prior to the album's studio sessions, liner notes by musical journalist and author Parke Puterbaugh, and some nifty postcards.

For those diehard R.E.M. fans that are in need of a "fix," this is a must-have. For everyone else, the anniversary edition of the album has some interesting hits with the demos but remains short of amazing. Tracks 1, 8, 3 and 2 from disc one and 1, 9, 7 and 4 from disc two make for a good listen.