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R.E.M. just keep reuniting. Thursday night, Feb. 27, the band that has repeatedly insisted they’ll never do a full-fledged reunion, took the stage at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia to perform with Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy’s R.E.M. cover band.

Near the end of the gig in R.E.M.’s hometown, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, and Bill Berry joined Shannon and Narducy for a performance of the Reckoning track “Pretty Persuasion.” Mike Mills completed the quartet about halfway through the performance when he jumped on...

Last year, all four original R.E.M. members appeared on stage together for the first time in 17 years when Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy’s R.E.M. tribute tour stopped at 40 Watt Club in the band’s hometown of Athens, Georgia — but they didn’t perform. On Thursday night, Shannon and Narducy returned to the venue, and R.E.M. made a proper onstage reunion by joining the duo for “Pretty Persuasion.”

While this was a surprise treat for fans in attendance, it was a particularly special occasion for Shannon and Narducy, who’ve been playing R.E.M. covers on tour for a few years now. After the performance was over, Shannon repeated, “Oh my god oh my god” before composing himself to say, “Guys, this is a special place where dreams come true.” Watch fan-shot footage below.

Get Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy's R.E.M. Tribute Tour Tickets Here

According to setlist.

Hollywood and music legends look to be pouring money into a fundraiser for New York Dolls singer and Saturday Night Live alum David Johansen, who is battling brain cancer.

Martin Scorsese, Colin Jost, Sony Music’s Rob Stringer, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, Hipgnosis Song Fund’s Merck Mercuriadis, the George Lopez Foundation and more notable names appear on a list of donations made to Johansen’s Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, which provides financial assistance to artists struggling with health challenges.

“David is a legend but he’s also my very real very sick dad,” Johansen’s daughter, Leah Hennessy, shared in an Instagram Story on Monday. The statement came in partnership with the Johansen’s Sweet Relief page reveals he has been in treatment for stage 4 cancer “for most of the past decade.”

On the fund’s donations page, Scorsese (who directed the 2022 Johansen documentary Personality Crisis), the George Lopez Foundation,...

In the beginning, R.E.M. would play anywhere that would have them, from pizza parlors to gay bars to frat parties. For all the arty elusiveness of their early music, the band that would end up setting the template for the Nineties alt-rock boom was hungrier and more strategic than it might have seemed — which is just one of many revelations in Peter Ames Carlin’s illuminating new book, The Name of This Band Is R.E.M.: A Biography.

In the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, Carlin...

Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy, likely the world’s most devoted R.E.M. fans, stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform a cover of the band’s 1985 song “Driver 8.”

With Shannon and Narducy’s “friends” backing them, the duo provide a faithful cover of the R.E.M. tune. Shannon’s baritone rings out a bit differently than Michael Stipe’s, but his cadence is undoubtedly similar to the frontman. Meanwhile, Narducy joins in for the occasional high harmony and backing vocal, and his jangly guitar tone is lifted straight from Peter Buck and Mike Mills. Watch their performance of “Driver 8” below.

Get Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy Tickets Here

Shannon and Narducy are currently gearing up for another major North American tour; this time, they’ll be playing R.E.M.’s third album Fables of the Reconstruction in full (as well as a handful of R.E.

Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy stopped by The Tonight Show to showcase a dynamic cover of R.E.M.’s 1985 song “Driver 8.” The performance previews the duo’s forthcoming tour that will showcase the rock band’s third studio LP, Fables Of The Reconstruction.

Shannon and Narducy previously toured R.E.M.’s iconic debut album, Murmur, in full. The trek attracted guests like Kurt Vile and R.E.M.’s Mike Mills. During their show in Athens, Georgia, last February, the four members of R.E.M. reunited on stage, with Mills,...

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In the Dec. 1987 cover story, a full four years before the release of their signature hit “Losing My Religion,” Rolling Stone called R.E.M. “America’s Best Rock and Roll Band.” R.E.M. would continue to record music for two more decades, and while many bands flame out or become nostalgia acts, R.E.M. made the nearly unheard-of decision to simply walk away, amicably calling it quits...

Eminem, N.W.A, Janet Jackson, and Alanis Morissette are among the finalists for the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s class of 2025.

Other nominees include Mike Love of The Beach Boys, Sheryl Crow, George Clinton, Boy George, The Doobie Brothers, Steve Winwood, Bryan Adams, Tommy James, and Walter Afanasieff. The full list of nominees can be found below.

A total of six inductees will be chosen: three from the songwriters category, and three from the performing songwriters category. They’ll be honored during a ceremony held in New York City in June 2025.

Artists become eligible for induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame 20 years after their first significant commercial release of a song.

Last year’s Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees included R.E.M., Steely Dan, Timbaland, and Dean Pitchford. During the induction ceremony, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck, and Bill Berry reunited for their first performance together in 15 years.

Singer-songwriter Matthew Sweet, who grew to fame in the 1990s with alt-rock hits including “Girlfriend” and “I’ve Been Waiting,” has suffered what his manager is calling a debilitating stroke that will prevent him from performing for the foreseeable future.

Sweet had the stroke while on tour in Toronto earlier this month. His management company Russell Carter Artist Management announced the situation on a GoFundMe page this week.

“Matthew Sweet, our longtime inspiration and dear friend, suffered a debilitating stroke this past week in Toronto while in the early days of a national tour,” said his rep Catherine Lyons in a statement. “He has been unexpectedly and tragically forced off the road and onto a long, uncertain path to recovery.”

Sweet played Toronto on October 13 with his tour mates, the ’90s hitmakers Hanson. Sweet’s national acoustic tour, which has included Hanson on only some dates, was scheduled to continue through November 16.

According to Lyons,...

Fresh off the pairing of Radiohead albums with screenings of Nosferatu, Blue Starlite Entertainment’s Silents Synced series has announced the next installment featuring R.E.M.’s music. Beginning in February 2025, the band’s albums Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi will be used to soundtrack screenings of the 1924 Buster Keaton comedy Sherlock Jr.

Sherlock Jr. x R.E.M. was created with the band’s approval. Its world premiere will take place on February 1st at the historic Morton Theatre in Athens, Georgia, as well as the Ciné art house cinema. Get more information at the Silents Synced website.

“Buster Keaton is one of my favorite actor/director/writers in movie history,” R.E.M. co-founder Peter Buck said in a statement. “I’m honored that in some small way R.E.M. is collaborating with him from beyond the grave.”

The band’s longtime manager Bertis Downs added, “The guys were...

Fresh off the pairing of Radiohead albums with screenings of Nosferatu, Blue Starlite Entertainment’s Silents Synced series has announced the next installment featuring R.E.M.’s music. Beginning in February 2025, the band’s albums Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi will be used to soundtrack screenings of the 1924 Buster Keaton comedy Sherlock Jr.

Sherlock Jr. x R.E.M. was created with the band’s approval. Its world premiere will take place on February 1st at the historic Morton Theatre in Athens, Georgia, as well as the Ciné art house cinema. Get more information at the Silents Synced website.

“Buster Keaton is one of my favorite actor/director/writers in movie history,” R.E.M. co-founder Peter Buck said in a statement. “I’m honored that in some small way R.E.M. is collaborating with him from beyond the grave.”

The band’s longtime manager Bertis Downs added, “The guys were...

Pairing classic movies with modern soundtracks is always fun—like playing The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz at the same time—and it works especially well with silent films. When one of Buster Keaton’s masterpieces, Sherlock Jr., is re-released in theaters in February, the music will come from R.E.M.’s Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi albums. Full details are on producer Blue Starlite Entertainment’s “Silents Synced” series website.

A trailer for the release begins with old-timey music before kicking into R.E.

Members of R.E.M., The Black Crowes, and Screaming Trees have formed a new supergroup, Silverlites, alongside singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur. The band’s first single “Don’t Go, Don’t Stay” is out now ahead of the November 15th release of its self-titled debut album.

The project features Arthur on lead vocals alongside R.E.M.’s Peter Buck on acoustic guitars, The Black Crowes’ Rich Robinson on acoustic and electric guitars, and Barrett Martin on drums, upright bass, vibraphone, and backing vocals.

“Don’t Go, Don’t Stay” introduces the Silverlites’ roots-rock sound, as Arthur sings over organic instrumentation from Buck, Robinson, and Martin — the latter of whom recorded the initial acoustic guitar tracks in a Nashville hotel room in 2019.

“We hope you like the songs, as we spent the pandemic years doing various recording and mixing sessions,” wrote Martin on Instagram, “and we used a classic songwriting form, which...

Sometime in 1986, Darius Rucker was singing in his dorm shower at the University of South Carolina when another kid on the floor overheard him. Mark Bryan grabbed his guitar and asked Rucker to jam in his room, leaving the door open. Within minutes, they were drawing their first crowd. From there, Rucker’s musical career has been more or less charmed, even if it took Hootie and the Blowfish years on the road before they got a record deal. Since 2008, he’s been a boundary-breaking country star, and he’s...

A week of welcome R.E.M. reunions — which began with their first interview together in nearly 30 years and followed by a surprise performance at the Songwriters Hall of Fame — continued Saturday with a new playlist curated by the band highlighting their favorite R.E.M. songs.

“The R.E.M. Top 40 — according to the guys themselves — is out now wherever you stream music!” the band’s social media said Saturday. “Michael’s are #1-10, Peter’s 11-20, Mike’s 21-30, & Bill’s 31-40.”

The R.E.M. Top 40 — according to the...

You remember 2007. We were at war in Iraq. Britney Spears shaved her head. The Sopranos ended. Mad Men premiered.

And R.E.M. gave its last public performance at its Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.

That last item changed on Thursday night in New York, as R.E.M. was inducted into the 2024 Songwriters Hall of Fame and marked the occasion by performing for the first time together in years.

The band — lead vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry — reunited for the 53rd annual Induction and Awards Dinner, which took place at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. They playd

The band — lead vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry — reunited for the 53rd annual Induction and Awards Dinner, which took place at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. They played an acoustic version of their Top 5 hit,...

It didn’t take “a comet,” as Mike Mills joked it would, just an induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame to prompt R.E.M. to perform together for the first time since 2007.

In the lead up to the event, sat down for an interview with CBS Mornings, the majority of which aired yesterday. But on Friday morning, following the induction ceremony and R.E.M.’s surprise performance of “Losing My Religion,” CBS shared a few additional clips — including the moment reporter Anthony Mason noticed the lyrics sheet for the...

That wasn’t just a dream. On Thursday night, for four-and-a-half glorious minutes, R.E.M. was back onstage for the first time in 15 years.

At the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Bill Berry had the room in a collective gasp as they performed one of their biggest hits, “Losing My Religion.” You could hear each instrument as clear as a bell, and it highlighted the primitive chemistry between four unlikely friends from Athens, Georgia, who invented indie rock and created a body of work...

It’s been a busy week for Trey Anastasio. On Sunday, the Phish guitarist joined Billy Joel onstage at his penultimate Madison Square Garden residency show. On Thursday, he stopped by another New York event: The Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony, where he covered Steely Dan.

You can catch the eight-minute video below, where Anastasio kicks off with 1976’s “Kid Charlemagne,” then dives into the Dan classic “Reelin’ In the Years.”

“When he played the “Baker’s Dozen” down the street at Msg, he played 237 songs over 13 nights,” the announcer said of the band’s 2017 residency.

The titans of ‘90s “alternative” rock, R.E.M., were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at New York’s Marriott Marquis Hotel on Thursday and did something they previously suggested would never happen: play together.

The group appeared on CBS News in a rare interview earlier this week and said as much. It would take “a comet,” Mike Mills suggested, or “super glue” as per Bill Berry for them to get back together again. The thinking was because “it’d never be as good,” according to Peter Buck. But despite that splash of cold water, the multi-platinum-selling band went back on their word and did, indeed, pick up their instruments and play perhaps their most famous song, “Losing My Religion” at the Hall of Fame ceremony. It was their first public performance since 2008.

The three-time Grammy-winning group broke up in September 2011, after years of rumors. The original drummer,...

Kevin Bacon reprised his role in Footloose to honor the title track’s songwriter, R.E.M. reunited after calling it quits 13 years ago and Sza said winning an honor for her songwriting “validates my entire career.” All this and more occurred at a jam-packed and starry Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards gala Tuesday night, as R.E.M., Timbaland, Steely Dan, Hillary Lindsey and Dean Pitchford officially became members of the prestigious organization’s 2024 class.

Jason Isbell honored R.E.M. — who split in 2011 after three decades of success — with a performance of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).”

“I don’t know if humanity will make it another thousand years, but if we do, a weird kid in a tiny town will hear “Nightswimming” and feel [something],” Isbell said to cheers from the crowd.

Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Bill Berry...

Less than a day after bassist Mike Mills declared it would take “a comet” for the four founding members of R.E.M. to play together again, the quartet took to the stage for a surprise performance celebrating their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Thursday night.

Mills, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, and Bill Berry appeared at the Marriot Marquis Hotel in New York City and played their highest-charting hit, “Losing My Religion.” In another post, the group shared a photo of the moment, captioning, “Another moment… oh life.”

The...

Turns out it didn’t actually take a comet for R.E.M. to reunite. To celebrate their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry took the stage for a surprise performance at the Marriot Marquis Hotel in New York City on Thursday night. According to the band’s Instagram, they played “Losing My Religion.”

It marked Stipe, Buck, and Mills’ first time playing together since disbanding in 2011, and the first time all four band members appeared together on stage since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.

R.E.M.’s decision to take the stage and perform at the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony is certainly an unexpected development. In a televised interview with CBS This Morning that aired just hours earlier, the band dismissed the idea of a reunion. Mills joked that it would take...

The four founding members of R.E.M. reunited (for an interview only) to reflect on their history with CBS Mornings ahead of their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame Thursday night. The quartet confirmed they would not play together again (it would take “a comet,” according to bassist Mike Mills, and guitarist Peter Buck opined, “It would never be as good,”) but they said they were proud of their accomplishments and ended the band in 2011 at the right time for them.

“At that point, there wasn’t anything we could agree on really,...

Later this evening, R.E.M. is set to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In anticipation, all four members of the legendary rock band — Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry — sat down together for their first television interview in 30 years with Anthony Mason of CBS This Morning.

The foursome discussed their approach to songwriting, inner-band dynamics, and their decision to disband in 2011.

Looking back, Buck said, the band has no regrets about walking away when they did. “We could barely agree on where to go to dinner. And now, we can just agree on where to go to dinner,” Buck said. “I think we quit at the right time. This is a really good place to finish, you know – great tour, great album, go home.”

Mills also reiterated that a reunion is not in the cards, joking that it would take a “comet” to get the band back together.

If you wonder what motivates a band after three decades together, ask the Old 97’s. “It feels so unlikely that we’re here, in this moment, in our career and in our lives, and we’ve built something that’s really pretty unimpeachable,” Rhett Miller tells me. We’re sitting in his office — the basement room in his Hudson Valley, New York, home where he writes, seeks inspiration, and often streams solo shows online. “I don’t want to fuck it up.”

The Old 97’s are capping off a year...

On their latest album, American Primitive, the Old 97’s have sandwiched songs about assessing their life choices and serial monogamy with reminders that the world is a doomed and hopeless place and that if you’ve found even a modicum of joy, then that day is a triumph. On the first track, “Falling Down,” they try to frighten you into gratitude via a caustic surf-rock apocalypse built with tremolo electric and strummed acoustic guitars, as frontman Rhett Miller sings, “You’ve got to dance like the world is falling down around you — because it is.

The 2024 Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala will feature a special appearance from Diane Warren, who has been named this year’s recipient of the Johnny Mercer Award. The award, to be presented at the ceremony on June 13, is considered to be the institution’s highest honor. It is reserved for songwriters and songwriting teams that have already been inducted into the Hall of Fame and whose catalogue of work matches the quality and standards set by esteemed songwriter Johnny Mercer.

“I’m beyond honored to receive the Johnny Mercer Award,...

Rhett Miller bums a ride in the back of a pickup and receives the signs of his past and future in the video for “Where the Road Goes,” the Old 97’s’ new song that celebrates the band’s more than 30 years of longevity.

While Miller sings about various highs and lows of life and career (“from the bottom of a bottle to the palazzo/who knows where the road goes”), he sees the number 97 everywhere — on a highway sign, above a gas station — and also a ramshackle marquee announcing American Primitive,...

During Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy’s R.E.M. tribute tour stop in Athens, Georgia on Thursday night, the original R.E.M. members Mike Mills, Peter Buck, Bill Berry, and Michael Stipe joined them on stage.

The reunion marks the first time R.E.M.’s core four members have been on stage together since their Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2007. Currently, Shannon and Narducy are on tour performing R.E.M.’s 1983 album Murmur in full, which spawned from Mike Mills’ guest appearance with the duo in Chicago last year. At Shannon and Narducy’s performance at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia last night, each R.E.M. member joined the duo on stage.

They didn’t all perform together, and Michael Stipe didn’t perform at all — but he did emerge at the end of the performance to tell the audience “Speaking on behalf...

R.E.M., Steely Dan, Timbaland, and songwriters Dean Pitchford (“Footloose”) and Hillary Lindsey (“Jesus Take the Wheel”) are this year’s inductees into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the organization announced today.

The 2024 induction ceremony and Awards Gala is set for Thursday, June 13, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Additional special award honorees will be announced soon.

“I’ve said it before, but the music industry does not exist without songwriters delivering great songs first,” Shof Chairman Nile Rodgers said in a statement that this year’s inductees represent “not just iconic songs but also diversity and unity across genres, ethnicity and gender.” He added that this year’s songwriters “have enriched our lives and literally enriched music and the lives of billions of listeners all over the world.”

In today’s announcement, the Hall of Fame listed key songs in the inductees’ catalogs:

Hillary Lindsey:

Jesus Take...

The Songwriters Hall of Fame has a new class of inductees, including Timbaland, R.E.M., Steely Dan, Hillary Lindsey and Dean Pitchford.

The organization announced its 2024 class on Wednesday, and the famed songwriters will be officially inducted on June 13. The event will take place in New York City at the Marriott Marquis Hotel.

“I’ve said it before, but the music industry does not exist without songwriters delivering great songs first. Without them there is no recorded music, no concert business, no merch … nothing, it all starts with the song and the songwriter,” Nile Rodgers, chairman of the Songwriters Hall, says in a statement.

“We are therefore very proud that we are continually recognizing some of the culturally most important songwriters of all time and that the 2024 slate represents not just iconic songs but also diversity and unity across genres, ethnicity and gender, songwriters who have enriched our lives and literally...

Members of R.E.M. and Steely Dan are among this year’s inductees into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Other members of its 2024 class include Timbaland, Dean Pitchford, and Hillary Lindsey.

A ceremony honoring the 2024 class will be held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City on Thursday, June 13th. Artists become eligible for induction 20 years after the first commercial release of their music.

R.E.M. members Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck, and Bill Berry will all be recognized by the Songwriters Hall of Fame, while Steely Dan’s Walter Becker will be inducted posthumously alongside surviving bandmate Donald Fagen.

Timbaland represents this year’s only inductee of color. The hip-hop producer is of course known for his work alongside Missy Elliott, Justin Timberlake, and Jay-Z.

Lindsey, this year’s only female inductee, has won three Grammy Awards for penning songs including Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take...

Steely Dan, Blondie, Public Enemy, R.E.M, Timbaland and the man who wrote bubblegum classics “Build Me Up Buttercup” and “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” are among the nominees for the 2024 Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Also included on the roster of nominees are, among others, Bread frontman David Gates, Tracy Chapman, the Guess Who’s Randy Bachman & Burton Cummings, Kenny Loggins, Heart and Roger Nichols, who composed the music for such Carpenters hits as “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Rainy Days and Mondays.”

See the complete list of nominees below.

According to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a songwriter with a notable catalog of songs qualifies for induction 20 years after the first significant commercial release of a song. Eligible voting members will have until midnight Et on December 27, 2023 to turn in ballots, with their choices of three nominees from a songwriter and three from performing songwriter categories.

There were few bands on the planet bigger than R.E.M. in the mid-Nineties. Their popularity grew every year in the Eighties before they went supernova the following decade thanks to hits like “Losing My Religion,” “Man on the Moon,” “Everybody Hurts,” and “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” Warner Bros. was so desperate to keep them on the label in 1996 that it gave them $80 million for their next five albums, breaking all industry records up to that point.

The timing wasn’t great, as it turned out. Drummer Bill Berry decided...

Micky Dolenz — the sole surviving member of The Monkees — has announced a new EP of R.E.M. covers. Aptly titled Dolenz Sings R.E.M, it’s out on November 3rd. In anticipation, Dolenz has shared the lead single: his version of “Shiny Happy People.” Stream the song below.

In addition to “Shiny Happy People,” the four-song EP will feature Dolenz’s renditions of “Radio Free Europe,” “Man on the Moon,” and “Leaving New York.” The project will be released via 7A Records, and will be available on special yellow vinyl. Pre-orders are ongoing.

As revealed in a new interview with Rolling Stone, the multi-generational mash-up was the result of a conversation Dolenz had with 7A Records co-owner Glenn Gretlund. “I was talking to Glenn about what to do next,” Dolenz explained. “The band R.E.M. came up. I went, ‘Wow, that’s very cool.’ I’m a big fan… And I...

Courtney Love, Sean Ono Lennon, Mickey Dolenz, and more will perform an Adam Schlesinger tribute concert on May 5th.

Held virtually with performances filmed at New York City’s Bowery Electric, the show will feature musicians covering songs from the late Fountains of Wayne frontman’s catalogue. Patrick Carney, Peter Buck, James Iha, Mike Viola, Taylor Hanson, Ben Lee, Jesse Malin, Nicole Atkins, Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba, Motion City Soundtrack’s Justin Pierre, and more will appear.

Adam Schlesinger, A Music Celebration, Virtual Show was organized by his bandmate Jody Porter,...

The late rocker and TV/theater composer Adam Schlesinger, who died from complications of Covid-19 in April 2020, will be feted by dozens of musicians and actors in May in an online tribute being produced by Jody Porter, his longtime bandmate in Fountains of Wayne.

Titled “Adam Schlesinger, A Music Celebration, Virtual Show,” the stream will be primarily recorded at New York’s Bowery Electric and go out May 5 at 8 p.m. Et on the Rolling Live platform, with a ticket price of $20 that will benefit MusiCares and the closed host venue itself.

Said Porter, “This is a proper musical send-off for my soul brother with a bunch of talented and groovy guests that would make Adam wince.”

Among the frequent collaborators of Schlesinger’s who’ll appear on the show besides Porter and his band the Berlin Waltz are Taylor Hanson and James Iha, both of his band Tinted Windows,...

The members of Gang of Four would likely be the first to tell you that you do not need an extravagant Gang of Four box set. They’re the ones who released a 45 sarcastically titled “To Hell With Poverty” and backed it up with “Capital (It Fails Us Now),” a lampoon about a newborn baby reaching for its credit card. They skewered advertising culture on “I Found That Essence Rare” and quipped, “The problem of leisure, what to do for pleasure, ideal love a new purchase” on “Natural’s Not in It.

Thirty years ago, R.E.M. dropped an album called Out of Time — and nobody was prepared for it. “Losing My Religion,” “Half a World Away,” “Country Feedback,” “Near Wild Heaven” — these were the most soulful, gorgeous songs the boys from Athens G-a had ever written. This comeback changed everything about the R.E.M. story, but it also presaged the whole decade to come. They basically invented the Nineties with this album. It was a total shock, after a few years when they sounded like bored rock pros going through the motions.

Ten years ago this week, R.E.M. wrapped up their three-decade career as a band with the release of Collapse Into Now. They didn’t make it public at the time, but they recorded the album with the knowledge that it would be their last work. Simply put, everyone in the band was burned out and ready to take on other projects.

“Once Pro Tools was invented, [making albums] was no fun,” guitarist Peter Buck told Rolling Stone in 2016. “We made a couple of albums where I thought, ‘I don’t...

With Soundgarden, Kim Thayil often experimented with how he played guitar, changing the strings’ tunings and incorporating feedback into the band’s sound. He brings that sense of musical adventuring to “The Firebird,” a track off the upcoming album by the Barrett Martin Group, a jazz-fusion ensemble that the former Screaming Trees drummer leads. The song, featured on the group’s new album Scattered Diamonds, finds Thayil playing along with the brass section’s uplifting melodies before exploring more avant-garde sounds for a quiet improvised solo that blends woozy feedback with the horns.

My husband and I have gone a lot of drives since moving to New Jersey last year — to small seaside towns, to rolling farmlands, through the notorious Meadowlands and their belching sulfuric funk. Those drives have taken on new significance as more and more New Jersey citizens don masks to go shopping, and as everyone faces the hard truths of the Covid-19 era.

Through the windshield of our little red hatchback is the only way we can see the world these days. And, more often than not, these drives, even the short ones,...

Big Star drummer Jody Stephens, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills and more discuss the power pop band’s legacy in The Memphis Masters video series.

The clip opens with Stephens next to his drumkit as the band’s “Thirteen” plays in the background. “I think part of the Memphis creed is that we’re all individuals,” he says in the clip. “We don’t really care to have people looking over our shoulders about what we do and how we do it.”

“And therein lies part of how Big Star evolved,...

Hootie and the Blowfish have released a cover of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion,” available to stream and purchase exclusively on Amazon Music.

“When we were cutting our teeth as a band, almost every night fans would hear us onstage covering R.E.M.,” Hootie and the Blowfish frontman and South Carolina native Darius Rucker said. ” ‘Losing My Religion’ is a song that when you first listen to it, you can feel the struggle, the back-and-forth. Plus, Peter Buck wrote the song on mandolin, and being in the South,...

Bill Rieflin — the versatile drummer and multi-instrumentalist who performed with R.E.M., Ministry and most recently King Crimson over his 30-year career — has died, Rolling Stone has confirmed. A cause of death has not yet been made public. He was 59.

“Bill Rieflin flew from this world c. 18.50 Pacific, 18.50 UK,” King Crimson founder Robert Fripp wrote on Facebook following receiving a phone call confirming Rieflin’s death. He added, “Fly well, Brother Bill! My life is immeasurably richer for knowing you.”

“Bill Rieflin was a gentleman and a gentle man,...

While performing an intimate acoustic show as Brothers of a Feather, the Black Crowes’ Chris and Rich Robinson were joined by Peter Buck for a cover of R.E.M.’s “7 Chinese Bros.” in Portland on Wednesday.

They performed the song, off 1984’s Reckoning, during the duo’s encore. Rich and Buck plucked their acoustic guitars simultaneously, as Chris stood beside them holding the mike. “Wrap your heel in bones of steel,” he sings. “Turn the leg, a twist of color.”

Ahead of their massive Black Crowes reunion tour, the...

Most people would be thrilled if Hedwig and the Angry Inch co-writer and star John Cameron Mitchell performed an intimate Bowie cover just inches from their faces. But on Hulu’s Shrill, Mitchell is an alt newsweekly boss trying to recapture his “cool factor,” not a musical theater god, so the audience reaction at his “salon” is a little less than enthused.

Mitchell’s “Moonage Daydream” cover is one of the most awkward/affecting moments of season two of Shrill, a TV series based on journalist-comedian Lindy West’s memoir,...

Costco sells everything from diapers to coffins, a kind of lifecycle in retail. Laetitia Tamko’s most vital purchase at the super-store came somewhere in between childhood (baby formula) and adulthood (vinyl siding): the dinky starter Fender she picked up at age 17.

“I love Costco,” Tamko — who writes and records contemplative songs as Vagabon — says as she strolls through the entryway of a chain store somewhere in Brooklyn on a recent Friday night. Her pace is much more leisurely than those of the people surrounding her, with their carts full of $4.99 rotisserie chickens,...

Hedwig and the Angry Inch’s John Cameron Mitchell has teamed up with Eyelids — a psychedelic group featuring members of Decembrists, Guided By Voices and the Jicks — to record an Ep of Lou Reed covers. The proceeds will benefit Mitchell’s mom, who has Alzheimer’s disease. They also released an animated video for “Waves of Fear,” which originally appeared on Reed’s 1982 classic The Blue Mask.

The limited edition Ep, Turning Time Around, produced by R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, is available for pre-order right now. It also...