Perhaps we shouldn't be that surprised that Bob Dylan is the latest major artist to embrace the free download single as a taster for a forthcoming album.
The past few years have found the inscrutable American legend more musically engaged than at any time since his original heyday in the Sixties and Seventies.
In addition to a Never Ending Tour that has been on the road for 20 years, Dylan has given us his memoirs plus an acclaimed radio show.
At a concert in Brooklyn on Tuesday night, he even broke with recent tradition and began speaking to fans from the stage.
As a prequel to his new album, Tell Tale Signs, out in October, he has also unveiled a previously unreleased song, Dreamin' Of You, via his official website.
A dirty swamp-blues track that originally missed the cut for 1997's Time Out Of Mind,
Dreamin' Of You is classic Dylan.
Classic Dylan: the single is as a taster for a forthcoming album
A dark song in which the singer ponders his own mortality, it is a fine piece of ensemble playing, its tender lyrics enhanced by clattering drums and organ flourishes.
The Daniel Lanois-produced number certainly augurs well for Tell Tale Signs, a mammoth project (similar to Bruce Springsteen's Tracks) that will gather together 27 unreleased songs from the past ten years, including Dylan's cover of 32-20 Blues, a Robert Johnson standard.
Another excellent download (sadly, no longer available free) that should whet the appetite for a forthcoming album is Keane's Spiralling.
Now out commercially after being snapped up gratis by 500,000 fans last week, it moves the Sussex trio away from the soft, melancholy rock of Coldplay towards the more muscular style of the Killers and Let's Dance-era Bowie.
