REM has announced that it's going to debut its new album through social networking service iLike.

REM will allow users of the site to stream music from the forthcoming Accelerate for 6 days before the official launch of the album on 1 April.

The iLike launch will mean the album will be also available to people who have the iLike app in their social networking page - so users of Facebook, MySpace and Bebo too.

The iLike exclusive will go live alongside a video of the band talking about the album that can also be streamed for free.

"It was one of those ideas that was presented to us and it seemed like a good one so we ran for it", REM frontman Michael Stipe told Billboard magazine.

>> Via - PCPro