Now less than a month away, the schedule for the South By Southwest music festival is starting to solidify, with a host of ’80s college rock vets slated to make appearances in Austin, Texas, next month — including Duran Duran, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Edwyn Collins, World Party, J Mascis and more.

This week’s new releases include an expanded reissue of Ride’s debut ‘Nowhere’; a new Bob Geldof album called ‘How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell’; a new best-of from Propaganda’s Claudia Brücken (‘Combined’); a reissue of Howard Jones’ ‘The 12″ Album’; vinyl reissues of Bauhaus and Dead Can Dance; and a collection of ZTT 12-inch mixes.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Live Aid, the Bob Geldof-organized African famine relief concert that remains one of the cultural signposts of the ’80s. For readers of this site, the event is perhaps best remembered as the tipping point in U2’s ascent from college-rock upstarts to global superstars.

Tweet Few things are more reminiscent of ’80s pop culture than the type of celebrity do-goodery that sprouted up in the aftermath of the earthquake […]

  Midnight Oil’s classic 1987 hit “Beds are Burning” — originally about Aboriginal land rights in Australia — is being turned into an all-star, new-millennium […]