Following the break-up of R.E.M. last year, frontman Michael Stipe was quick to say he had no intentions of making a solo album — but that doesn’t appear to be the case for guitarist Peter Buck. Longtime R.E.M. sideman Scott McCaughey broke the news this week to KIRO 97.3 radio show Seattle Sounds.

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.’

Here’s one for fans of unusual covers: Singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson loops her own vocals in place of the piano part in this cover of R.E.M.’s beloved “Nightswimming,” which she recorded during a recent visit to the studios of Sirius XM Satellite Radio.

Welcome to another installment of the Week in Rock, where we round up all of the headlines posted on this site over the past week. This edition includes headlines about Simple Minds, R.E.M, The Wedding Present, Adam Ant, The Mission, Deep Wound and New Order — plus our latest Auto Reverse mixtape.

It’s Michael Stipe’s birthday today — he’s 52 — so we’re cracking open the Vintage Video vault to bring you a 30-year-old R.E.M. concert, filmed Oct. 10, 1982, at The Pier in Raleigh, N.C., for broadcast on local television — less than two months after the release of ‘Chronic Town.’

As 2011 quickly winds to an end, we’re happy to roll out our fourth and final days’ worth of results from our second-annual Slicing Up Eyeballs Readers Poll, in which nearly 500 of you cast ballots for your favorite music of the year. Today, we bring you the big one: The best albums of 2011.