Just weeks after revealing “I think I will sing again” in a TV interview, R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe took to the stage Monday night in New York City as the unannounced opening act for Patti Smith at Webster Hall, performing a six-song set that included two numbers by his old band and four covers.

R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe appeared on “CBS This Morning” today to help promote the band’s recently released “REMTV” DVD box set, discussing the band’s history and his own future and the (un)likelihood that we’ll ever see an R.E.M. reunion (“That will never happen. There’s no point.”).

Former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe inducted Nirvana into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night at a massive ceremony at the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, declaring of the genre-shaping alt rock act that, “This is not just pop music. This is something much greater than that.”

There very well could have been a full-fledged R.E.M. reunion in Portland, Ore., on Saturday night as all four members of the defunct college-rock superstars performed after Peter Buck’s wedding. But, by all appearances, they managed to avoid such headlines, just barely, by not actually sharing the stage together.

It’s a nearly unparalleled landmark in the history of ’80s college rock: R.E.M.’s peerless debut album, Murmur, was released on April 12, 1983 — exactly 30 years ago today. Today we celebrate this milestone by looking back at the building blocks of the album we know and love.

It’s not exactly the return to music anyone would have guessed from Michael Stipe, but the former R.E.M. frontman is back with his first new recording since that band split in 2011: a duet with Courtney Love called “Rio Grande” off the new Johnny Depp-curated ‘Son of Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys.’