Lifes Rich Pageant released

For their fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp ‘s producer Don Gehman . The album, entitled Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), brought Stipe’s vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune , Peter Buck related, “Michael is getting better at what he’s doing, and he’s getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice.” The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and reached number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single ” Fall on Me ” also picked up support on commercial radio. The album was the band’s first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. While American college radio remained R.E.M.’s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio .