R.E.M. were already college-radio heroes by the time they made Lifes Rich Pageant in 1986. They could’ve kept making mumbly, jangly tunes for their core audience, but they went bigger and bolder, stepping toward radio-friendliness while retaining their iconoclastic spirit. The marvelously harmonized "Fall on Me" was their first crossover hit, while songs like "These Days" infused bombastic choruses with oddball charm. The skippable demos and rehearsals tacked on to this reissue suggest their I.R.S. catalog has been repackaged too often, although it’s fun to hear "King of Birds" (a classic that surfaced a year later on Document) in scruffy early form.

Listen to "King of Birds":

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“Too Close”

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'"