Don’t Get Me Wrong; Pretenders Offering New Album as MP3s

Following in the footsteps of Madonna, Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead, the Pretenders are the latest iconic rock act to take advantage of innovative online distribution methods to create some buzz for their new record.

Madonna went mobile, NIN and Radiohead went free (sort of), and Chrissie Hynde and company are going serial. Break Up the Concrete is being released one MP3 track at a time, one per week, with each track being offered through a different Web site, all leading up to the CD release on September 23, Billboard.biz reports.

Making it worth fans’ time to go on the music service scavenger hunt, the weekly downloads are free. And since they’re in MP3 format, you can put the whole album together at the end and listen to it on any music-enabled phone.

The first track is available on AOL’s Spinner.com and from the Pretenders’ own Web site. Partner sites for the rest of the album include QuickTime, ClearChannel.com, iLike, imeem and a few others.

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