Michael Stipe sets May 2027 for debut solo album, first song due on New Year's Eve

Former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe has laid out the release plan for his first solo album: a new song with a video will arrive five seconds into the new year, and the still-untitled record will follow in May 2027. He shared the schedule in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, conducted alongside his producer Andrew Watt. Stipe had earlier told Stephen Colbert the album would be out by the end of the year.

Watt and longtime collaborator Andy LeMaster are producing, together with what Stipe jokingly called a "rogues' gallery". According to Stereogum, on Monica Lewinsky's "Reclaiming" podcast he played a snippet of one track from his phone and revealed that Peaches, who appeared on R.E.M.'s final studio album, “Collapse Into Now” (2011), is a guest. Some of the songs are "a bit disco", he said, a style she handles better than he does.

Asked whether the record is political, Stipe told the LA Times, as reported by OndaRock, that it is not a topical album, but that his place in pop culture and his reputation as an activist make it deeply political anyway.

Born in 1960 in Decatur, Stipe rose to fame with R.E.M., an alternative and folk rock band. In 2019 he said he had 18 songs ready, and in 2023 he told the New York Times Magazine he was in no hurry. Earlier this year he debuted the song “The Rest of Ever” on Colbert's Late Show, and earlier in October mbuzz reported that he called the album almost finished.