This year’s South By Southwest will feature appearances by a horde of ’80s college rock vets, including The Jesus and Mary Chain, Bob Mould performing ‘Copper Blue,’ The Wedding Present, Thomas Dolby, The Cult, Dinosaur Jr and The dB’s, plus R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Mike Mills playing Big Star’s ‘Third.’

The now-disbanded R.E.M. today unveiled the tracklist and cover art for its forthcoming, career-spanning best-of — the 40-song ‘Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011’ — and announced that ‘We All Go Back to Where We Belong,’ one of three new tracks on the set, will be issued as a single next month.

New York City’s Baruch College played host Saturday night to a star-studded tribute to Big Star’s beloved ‘Third/Sister Lovers’ album, performed by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and Mike Mills, plus Matthew Sweet, members of Teenage Fanclub and Yo La Tengo, and surviving Big Star member Jody Stephens.

While R.E.M. is busy promoting its forthcoming new album ‘Collapse Into Now,’ the band will continue its reissue series with the release later this year of an expanded 25th anniversary edition of 1986’s ‘Lifes Rich Pageant.’

As promised last week, R.E.M. today premiered its first music video from the forthcoming ‘Collapse Into Now’: a clip for radio single ‘Mine Smell Like Honey.’

Members of R.E.M.’s fan club have begun receiving their annual holiday single in the mail, and, like last year’s, the 2010 installment features the return of departed drummer Bill Berry on a cover of Darlene Love’s classic ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ — as well as an instrumental mashup of three tracks off the band’s forthcoming album ‘Collapse Into Now.’

R.E.M. employed a decidedly old-school medium to announce the full tracklist of its new album ‘Collapse Into Now’: The band revealed the titles of the record’s 12 songs via its snail-mail fanclub newsletter.

Mike Mills revealed the first details of R.E.M.’s 15th studio album, ‘Collapse Into Now,’ on Wednesday, telling Spin.com that the record features a ‘more expansive’ sound than 2008’s hard-rocking ‘Accelerate,’ thanks, in part, to guest appearances by the likes of Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye and Peaches.

During a break from sessions for R.E.M.’s next album, Mike Mills contributed a cover of Billy Bragg’s ‘Sing Their Souls Back Home’ — off the agit-folkie’s 2008’s album ‘Mr. Love & Justice’ — to The Voice Project.

Thirty years ago today, R.E.M. played its first-ever concert — reportedly billed as Twisted Kites — performing to several hundred friends and Athens townsfolk at a birthday party inside St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

Tweet Members of R.E.M.’s fan club have begun receiving their annual Christmas single from the band, and this year’s disc features a surprise: an appearance […]

Retired drummer Bill Berry and bassman Mike Mills jumped onstage last night with Peter Buck and the rest of The Minus 5 for a near-reunion […]

With touring and promotion of 2008’s Accelerate now finished, R.E.M. this year will issue, at a minimum, a pair of archival releases, hitting both ends […]

This week’s star-studded Carnegie Hall tribute to legendary college-rock grads R.E.M. was capped off with an appearance by the band itself, performing “E-Bow the Letter” […]