Warner Bros. Records’ R.E.M. and leading social music discovery service iLike announced today that Accelerate, the best-selling rock band’s 14th studio album, will stream in its entirety exclusively on iLike and its syndicates beginning March 24th.

A first for the company, the iLike Worldwide Listening Party will continue through March 26th, six days before the album’s North American release on April 1st, 2008. Additionally, R.E.M. will record an exclusive video message introducing and discussing the album that will be available via iLike for distribution across the Web.

In addition to being available on iLike’s website, the iLike Worldwide Accelerate Listening Party and exclusive R.E.M. video message will debut through the iLike Sidebar desktop plugin for iTunes and Windows Media Player, as well as across the Web via iLike’s leading applications on Facebook, Bebo, hi5, and for the iPhone. To listen to R.E.M’s Accelerate and watch the band’s exclusive video message, please visit - www.iLike.com/R.E.M

Nine Inch Nails is utilizing the Internet to disseminate its new instrumental album, ‘‘Ghosts I-IV,’’ which went live at 8 p.m. Sunday via the Trent Reznor-led group’s Web site. ‘‘Ghosts’’ also will see physical release via RED Distribution on April 8.

Fans can receive the first nine songs from the 36-track project, which was recorded during ‘‘an intense 10-week period last fall,’’ for free, or the entire album can be obtained digitally for $5.

‘‘I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point,’’ says Reznor, who collaborated on the music with Alan Moulder, Atticus Ross, Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew and Brian Viglione. ‘‘This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective — dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference.’’

There are several other ordering options available for ‘‘Ghosts I-IV,’’ each of which come with immediate access to the album in digital form. The standard double-CD set is retailing on Reznor’s site for $10, while a $70 deluxe edition in a hardcover fabric slipcase includes the audio CDs, a DVD with multi-track files for the music and a Blu-Ray disc with high-definition stereo mixes.

For $300, devotees can opt for the ‘‘ultra-deluxe limited edition’’ package, which features all the elements in the deluxe edition plus a four-LP vinyl set and two Giclee prints amid ‘‘luxurious packaging.’’ This edition is limited to 2,500 copies and is autographed by Reznor.

Both deluxe editions will ship on May 1; a stand-alone four-LP set will be available April 8 at traditional retail. Interested parties can sample a host of the tracks from NIN’s site. The full download is also available from Amazon.com, to which it was delivered by TuneCore, while the first 9 tracks were uploaded to BitTorrent sites like the Pirate Bay.

Demand for the new music appeared to be immediate and heavy. Just after 8:30 p.m., the site was down temporarily due to traffic.

Nine Inch Nails’ contract with longtime label Interscope expired last October. Interscope then released a remix album, ‘‘Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D,’’ and holds the rights to release a greatest hits collection at some point in the future.

As a precursor to the online release of ‘‘Ghosts,’’ Reznor collaborated with Saul Williams on an album dubbed ‘‘The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust,’’ which was offered as a free download in 192kbps MP3 form, or as a higher fidelity 320kbps MP3 or FLAC version for $5. Initial statistics revealed only 18 percent of fans chose to pay for the album.

Reznor’s move also follows Radiohead’s ‘‘name your own price’’ download scheme for its ‘‘In Rainbows’’ album last fall. And while both acts have jumped ship from major labels to release music completely independently, one source close to NIN believes the differentiation between the approaches of artists in this position will actually be what changes the game.

‘‘Most of the time with a label, they try to squeeze that differentiation out,’’ the source told Billboard last fall. ‘‘Now, there’s nothing that stops Reznor or Radiohead from doing it uniquely their way. They can do it how it best works for them, without pressure.’’

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Warner Music Group Corp., the record company of Led Zeppelin, reported a first-quarter loss on costs to close a business it acquired nine months ago. The shares posted a record drop. The net loss of $16 million, or 11 cents a share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, compares with net income of $18 million, or 12 cents, a year earlier, the New York-based company said today in a statement. Excluding the costs to close the acquired unit, earnings of 1 cent a share missed the 12-cent average of seven analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Warner Music, facing an industrywide decline in compact disc sales, bought concert company Bulldog Entertainment in May to try to boost revenue. It shut down the unit at a cost of $18 million. Revenue rose 6.6 percent to $989 million, driven by Josh Groban’s album “Noel” and currency changes. Excluding the changes, sales rose 1 percent, the first increase in six quarters.

“The write-off shows they were entering a business they arguably shouldn’t have gotten into in the first place,” said Chris White, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles who recommends holding the shares and doesn’t own them. “Revenue growth is still decent but supported by acquisitions that are questionable.”

Warner Music, the world’s third largest record company, tumbled $1.59, or 18 percent, to $7.15 at 10:32 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading after dropping as much as 19 percent, the most since the company went public in May 2005. The shares had declined 58 percent in the past 12 months before today on concern gains in digital sales won’t make up for the decline in higher-priced CDs.

Not `Standing Still’

Chief Executive Officer Edgar Bronfman is also trying to increase sales by adding merchandising and management services. Warner Music invested $50 million in a joint venture with Frank Sinatra’s family last year to market his music and videos as well as his name and likeness. It also paid about $110 million for a stake in artist management company Front Line Management.

Investments and acquisitions are likely to be smaller this year than in 2007, Chief Financial Officer Michael Fleisher said today on a conference call.

“While we were obviously disappointed with” Bulldog Entertainment, Bronfman said on the call, “we continue to believe that taking prudent risks to expand and enlarge our revenue opportunities is a far better strategy than standing still.”

(The company held a conference call to discuss the results at 8:30 a.m. New York time. For a replay, dial +1-888-566-0618 or +1-203-369-3076.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Don Jeffrey in New York at djeffrey1@bloomberg.net

Teenagers listen to an average of nearly 2.5 hours of music per day. Guess what they’re hearing about?

One in three popular songs contains explicit references to drug or alcohol use, according to a new report in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. That means kids are receiving about 35 references to substance abuse for every hour of music they listen to, the authors determined.

While songs about drugs and excess are nothing new, the issue is getting more attention because so many children now have regular access to music out of the earshot of parents. Nearly 9 out of 10 adolescents and teens have an MP3 player or a compact disc player in their bedrooms.

Studies have long shown that media messages have a pronounced impact on childhood risk behaviors. Exposure to images of smoking in movies influences a child’s risk for picking up the habit. Alcohol use in movies and promotions is also linked to actual alcohol use.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine studied the 279 most popular songs from 2005, based on reports from Billboard magazine, which tracks popular music. Whether a song contained a reference to drugs or alcohol varied by genre. Only 9 percent of pop songs had lyrics relating to drugs or alcohol. The number jumped to 14 percent for rock songs, 20 percent for R&B and hip-hop songs, 36 percent for country songs and 77 percent for rap songs.

Notably, smoking references aren’t that common in music today, with only 3 percent of the songs portraying tobacco use. About 14 percent of songs spoke of marijuana use, 24 percent depicted alcohol use, and another 12 percent included reference to other substances. About 4 percent of the songs contained “anti” drug and alcohol messages.

The study authors noted that music represents a pervasive source of exposure to positive images of substance use. The average adolescent is exposed to approximately 84 references to explicit substance use per day and 591 references per week, or 30,732 references per year. The average adolescent listening only to pop would be exposed to 5 references per day, whereas the average adolescent who listens just to rap would be exposed to 251 references per day.

Whether any of this matters remains an open question. While the impact of exposure to images of smoking and alcohol in film has been well documented, less is known about the effect of music on childhood risk behaviors.

Although music lacks the visual element of film, adolescent exposure to music is much more frequent, accounting for an average of 16 hours each week for music compared with about 6 hours each week for movie images, according to the study authors. But frequency of exposure is not the only factor. Unlike visual media, music is a powerful social force that also taps into an individual’s personal identity, memories and mood.

“Music is well-known to connect deeply with adolescents and to influence identity development, perhaps more than any other entertainment medium,’’ said the study authors.