The directors of the upcoming documentary ’40 Nights of Rock & Roll’ managed to drag former Replacements leader Paul Westerberg out of semi-seclusion last week to play some songs and talk rock at Minneapolis’ Target Field — and here’s a video teaser to prove it.

As it marks its own 25th anniversary this year, Spin magazine has churned out a list of the 125 best albums of the past quarter century — an honor roll topped by U2’s 1991 left turn ‘Achtung Baby,’ a record the mag says ‘genetically engineer(ed) rock music into the hybridized mutant we know today.’

Promise Ring offshoot Maritime covers the Depeche Mode classic ‘Enjoy the Silence,’ with a keytar no less, for the A.V. Club’s ‘Undercover’ series.

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.