Pop sensation-turned-tabloid punching bag Britney Spears is ready for her comeback. Britney has just released her new album Circus exclusively on imeem, where you can stream the album in its entirety for free (you’ll also be able to embed the album playlist anywhere you’d like). The downloadable/physical version of the album won’t be available until December 2nd, but you can currently pre-order it through imeem and a number of other stores.
The exclusive album launch marks a big win for Imeem, which also recently launched Lil Wayne’s latest mixtape, Dedication 3. The site seems to be in a heated battle for album launches with MySpace Music, which has also launched a number of high profile albums in the last few months, including Guns N’ Roses’ first album in 17 years, Beyonce, The Cure, Oasis, and a number of others. imeem’s Matt Graves says that one advantage imeem has over MySpace Music is its embeddable playlists, which makes it easier for albums to go viral as they get embedded on blogs across the web.
As with every major album release these days, Circus was leaked and has been available on a number of pirate sites since at least last week (some albums have been beaten to the punch by months, so it could be worse). These leaks do take some of the luster away from album launches, but there isn’t much the record labels can do beyond changing their distribution methods or bumping up release dates when there is a leak (which is what happened to Britney’s last album).
In other news the pop princess has also managed to lay claim to the Twitter account BritneySpears, in place of her old account therealbritney. Since joining us on Twitter in October Britney has racked up over 9000 followers after a meager 42 updates.