Simply awful news out of New Orleans tonight, as word emerges that Alex Chilton of the peerless power-pop act Big Star has died of an apparent heart attack just days before he was scheduled to perform with the reconstituted band at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists cover Tears for Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ in the debut of the A.V. Club’s new ‘Undercover’ series, which will feature bands covering tunes by The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode, R.E.M. and more.

Spin magazine recently dropped a goldmine into Google Books: scans of nearly every issue of the music mag, from its May 1985 debut up through October 2009. We’ve flipped through the ’85 to ’90 issues, creating links to stories about The Cure, R.E.M., The Replacements, Morrissey, New Order and many, many more.

Out March 23, the soundtrack to ‘Hot Tube Time Machine’ features such ’80s film staples as Echo & The Bunnymen’s ‘Bring On the Dancing Horses’ and New Order’s ‘Bizarre Love Triangle,’ plus tracks by The Replacements (‘I Will Dare’), INXS (‘What You Need’) and The English Beat (‘Save it For Later’).

Tweet This has been around for some time, but it’s certainly worth sharing for fans who haven’t seen it: The Replacements, in all of their […]

Tweet Paul Westerberg this week signed a new deal with Bug Music Publishing — which bills itself as the “largest independent contemporary music publisher in […]

Tweet Minneapolis this week lost a key figure in that city’s now-legendary ’80s underground rock scene: guitarist Bruce C. Allen of New Wave act The […]