Stipe is the former frontman of R.E.M., the band that launched a thousand college rock stations.

Having decided at a young age to devote his life to music, Stipe teamed up with University of Georgia classmates Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry to form R.E.M.; the group released its first album, Murmur, in 1983. They went on to define the alt-rock genre, and set the pace for generations of whiny guitar groups. Among R.E.M.'s major hits is 1991's Out of Time, which won two Grammys, begat the unexpected radio sensation "Losing My Religion," and was named one of the 100 greatest albums of all time by that ultimate arbiter of musical genius, Time. 1992's equally seminal Automatic for the People went quadruple platinum and yielded the melancholy anthem "Everybody Hurts." Although the band continued to truck along for two decades, in 2011 the band announced its retirement.

Stipe has kept busy outside of music: he has his own production company, Single Cell, and has also kept up the political activism he's long been known. After dodging questions about his sexuality for decades, Stipe finally outed himself in a 2001 interview with Newsweek. [Image via AP]