Each year from 1988 to 2011, R.E.M. mailed a special holiday single to every dues-paying member of its fan club, a total of 24 singles that featured Christmas songs, covers, live tracks and originals, spread across 7-inch vinyl for the first 10 years, then alternating between CDs, DVDs, vinyl and VHS.

In December 1988, when Dinosaur Jr entered Boston’s famed Fort Apache Studios, to record a track for ‘The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young,’ they cut not one but two songs: ‘Lotta Love,’ which would be included on the disc alongside covers by the Pixies, The Flaming Lips and Sonic Youth, and ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You.’

It’s Wayne Hussey’s birthday today — he’s 53 — and to honor the co-founder of goth-rock luminaries The Mission, we present this 1990 concert filmed in Dusseldorf during the ‘Carved in Sand’ tour and broadcast on German television.

Peter Buck is no stranger to jumping on stage for a good jam, so when former Hüsker Dü frontman Bob Mould swung through Athens, Ga., on July 25, 1990, in support of ‘Black Sheets of Rain,’ the R.E.M. guitarist pitched in on a crunchy cover of Neil Young’s classic-rock staple ‘Cinnamon Girl.’

Beggars Archive is readying a major This Mortal Coil re-release campaign, featuring a new 4CD box set, individual vinyl and CD reissues of the 4AD collective’s three studio albums, and a hi-def Blu-ray release that collects all of the band’s records and music videos on a single disc.

Crowded House tonight posted video of the band, joined by Neil Finn’s son, Liam Finn, performing Neil Young’s classic ‘Old Man’ in Clearwater, Fla., on Wednesday night as a tribute to longtime Young sideman Ben Keith, who died two days earlier.

This week’s new releases include Peter Gabriel’s new orchestral covers album, a live Pet Shop Boys CD/DVD, Niter Ebb’s first new record in 15 years and new reissues from Pixies, Bomb the Bass and 808 State.

Tweet The enigmatic Matt Johnson appears to be on the verge of releasing the first new The The album in a decade: a score to […]

Short-lived Scottish indie-pop outfit Close Lobsters — one of the 22 bands included on the NME’s genre-defining and now-legendary C86 compilation cassette — next week […]

Turns out the Pixies still have some life left in them, after all. Word began trickling out today that the slumbering band — which reunited […]