For the 25th anniversary of The Simpsons, the merchandising machine behind the show has been going all out with an FXX marathon, Hollywood Bowl concerts, cosmetics, and the release of collectible figures of various guest stars. Today The National Entertainment Collectibles Association and Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products announced the fou...

R.E.M. broke up nearly three years ago, and band members Peter Buck and Mike Mills have kept themselves busy with various smaller projects. But frontman Michael Stipe hasn’t made any music until now. Tom Gilroy, a longtime friend and collaborator of Stipe’s, has directed a new movie called The Cold Lands, and it’s o...

R.E.M. were already set to release their 1991 and 2001 MTV Unplugged sets and a collection of 50 rarities from their I.R.S. Records era this week, but they went ahead and released a 131-track batch of B-sides, non-album tracks and live cuts from their Warner Bros. period too. The surprise anthology, assembled entirely from previously [...]

During most of the stops on the Reflektor tour, Arcade Fire take some time out of their encore to cover a song from an artist that’s native to or popular in whatever state they’re playing. In Ohio, they covered Devo; in Philadelphia, they took on Boyz II Men’s “Motown Philly”; in St. Louis it was...

It’s Britpop Week here at Stereogum, and to help us celebrate, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck has shared a story about his old band sabotaging the poor blokes of the Verve. Buck sat down with Portland’s Willamette Week for a rare interview, and among other things, reminisced about the time he and his R.E.M. cohorts did [...]