Called the “iLike Worldwide Listening Party,” the collaboration between R.E.M., Warner Bros. and the social music discovery Web site runs March 24 – 26 and blazes a new path for music promotion and distribution. It’s been 25 years since R.E.M. started making albums, and to say the music-promotion landscape has changed since then would be an understatement.

Today’s world is a world of viral marketing, satellite radio, Internet radio, file-swapping, MP3 blogs and subscription music services. Nowadays, streaming a new album before it hits the stores makes perfect sense. Or, at least more sense than relying on radio stations and record promoters.

And iLike is a great place to stream a new album. After all, people go to iLike because they love music. The site claims 25 million registered users and can create exposure across many Internet platforms compatible with iLike applications.

In R.E.M.’s case, streaming the new album on iLike means exposure, not only on the iLike site itself, but also by way of the iLike Sidebar desktop plugin for iTunes and Windows Media Player and through many other socially oriented Web communities, like Facebook and Bebo.

“Collaborating with iLike, and debuting Accelerate across the Web is in keeping with the spirit and immediacy of the album,” R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe said. “We wanted to do something superfast and super real. Music, art and pop culture are about right now, and nothing else matters. Accelerate is our turbo-charged response to the times we live in.”