Two of Athens GA's musical spawn are in sync right now: Both the B-52's and R.E.M. are releasing new albums (and doing so Web based sneaking) within a week of one another: The new B-52's CD FUNPLEX, which came out Tuesday, was #3 on Amazon's top sellers Tuesday, with R.E.M. pre-orders at #2. On Weds, the B's were #2 and R.E.M. slipped to #3. (Mad props to Tom Roche for the stats and the streaming links!)

For those of us who can't get enough of Fred Schneider (whose Party Out Of Bounds rocks Sirius Satellite's First Wave every Friday Night, Funplex comes as a welcome release!

FUNPLEX! (Rusted!)

If you want to sneak a listen, there's an Australian site that's streaming til tomorrow here.

Also returning to form:

LOSING MY PRETENTION

And for another day, you can listen to the R.E.M. album here on iLike.com