Michael Stipe's First Solo Album Lands May 2027, Single on New Year's Eve

Michael Stipe's debut solo album arrives in May 2027, with its first single dropping this New Year's Eve, the former R.E.M. singer-songwriter told the LA Times. That's four years later than the release date originally teased for the record, which still has no title.

Stipe, 65, had been candid about the delay. In 2023 he told New York Times Magazine he was "in no rush" to put the album out. Now the schedule is firm — and unusually precise. "Five seconds into the new year, there will be a new song with a video setting up the album," he said in the LA Times interview.

The timing matters for one more reason. Earlier this year, Stipe previewed a track from the project, "The Rest of Ever," on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. That performance gave listeners their only public taste of the record so far.

Who is making the album with him?

Stipe is producing the LP with Andrew Watt — the producer behind recent records by rock veterans, and a go-to collaborator for legacy acts — along with Andy LeMaster, his longtime Athens, Georgia compatriot, and what Stipe called "a gallery of thieves."

Work is actively underway. "Andy and I are in the studio for three days mixing some of the songs that he and I have worked on together," Stipe told the Times. "I think the rest of it should be a little bit of a surprise."

Is the record political?

Stipe offered a paradoxical answer. At a dinner, someone who hadn't heard a note of it asked him, "It's political?" His first reply: "No, not at all." Then he reconsidered.

"In fact, just by dint of it being me and my place in pop culture and my reputation as an activist and the kind of songs that I wrote in the past with my former band, it is deeply, deeply political," Stipe said. "But it's not topical."

He grounded that distinction in instinct. "Music is such a powerful medium, and I'm responding to instinct over anything else right now in terms of what I feel like I need from music and what I feel like I can offer," he said.

What does this change for Stipe's catalog?

It closes the longest gap in his recording career. R.E.M. disbanded in 2011 after 31 years and 15 studio albums, and Stipe has never released a solo LP — only scattered singles, collaborations and soundtrack work. May 2027 gives that discography its first standalone chapter.

Fans won't wait long for new material: the single lands December 31, and the video arrives seconds past midnight. Whether the full record answers the political question Stipe raised — or defies it — listeners will find out in two stages, starting this New Year's Eve.