Former R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck’s commitment to making new music — and releasing it on vinyl — continues this fall when he follows up his recently released second solo album with a brand-new four-track 7-inch EP titled Opium Drivel. The 33 rpm EP will be released Oct. 21 on Buck’s usual label, Mississippi Records.

It’s been a big week for R.E.M. fans — even bigger than we thought, with not just the release of the band’s 1991 and 2001 “MTV Unplugged” sets and the previously reported digital collection of I.R.S.-era rarities, but also a digital companion featuring a whopping 131 tracks from the band’s Warner Bros. period.

This week’s releases include a pair of titles from R.E.M. (the band’s 1991 and 2001 “Unplugged” sessions, plus a digital rarities set), a collection of Devo demos, a new best-of from The MIssion, a new album from Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbot of The Beautiful South, a Cramps vinyl reissue and more.

As the Arcade Fire’s current arena tour has crisscrossed the country, the band has selected a geographically significant cover song to perform each night — sometimes in full, sometimes just barely — and last night in Atlanta, the group performed a full version of R.E.M.’s 1981 debut single “Radio Free Europe.”

A new 50-song compilation of early R.E.M. material called Complete Rarities: I.R.S. 1982-1987 is due out digitally next month, but appears to be largely, if not completely, comprised of tracks previously assembled on 1987’s out-of-print Dead Letter Office, a more recent I.R.S. years best-of and singles.

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.”