Michael Stipe, who just celebrated his 60th birthday, is making music again, and it's really good music.
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="250" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/luoE63wUKAE" width="450"></iframe>Hearing this makes me happy and sad. I can hear echoes in this song of some of R.E.M.'s work on Up and Reveal, which were departures from their previous work and were generally disliked by fans (myself included at the time). Listening now I feel like this was a direction Michael wanted to go a long time, but fans weren't ready for it. I'm really glad he's getting to make his own music now.