Want to make Michael Stipe your Facebook buddy? Now's the time! R.E.M.'s next album Accelerate will debut online one week ahead of its official release date [1] — on social networking site iLike [2] and any of the sites that use iLike's application, like Facebook [3]. According to Billboard, the March 24 roll-out is "the first of its kind for a major act."

Stipe says he's just going with the new wave of how listeners find music which he says "has certainly changed in the last 5 or 10 years. I think you can either go with it or sit back and watch it happen, and I would rather be out on the field than in the bleachers."

I have to say, I am loving the first track we've heard off Accelerate, "Supernatural Superserious," and most of you seem to like it [4], too. Regardless of how much they embrace the digital age, R.E.M.'s still got it.