Harbinger of the early '60s surf pop craze, former Beach Boy Brian Wilson has stepped out of Beach Blanket Babylon and into the 21st Century.|

Last Tuesday, four American radio stations witnessed Wilson's leap into the realm of cutting-edge technology when they received his new single, "Your Imagination," over the Internet -- a recording industry breakthrough. The stations -- WLIT and WCKG in Chicago, Y107 in Los Angeles and WLTW in New York -- digitally downloaded the song using Liquid Music Player and were able to air the song almost instantly.

"Brian has a rabid Internet following," Mary Stuyvesant of Giant Records told JAMTV on Friday. "I said, 'Here's an artist we should start something with now.'"

Computer literate Wilson followers got a taste of the new technology on April 15 when Giant Records secretly released a copy of the new single on the Internet. Though slow at first, fans' response skyrocketed when word leaked out last week. Stuyvesant said Giant Records' website received more than 7,000 downloads on April 21 alone.

If this technology catches on, record companies could send new music out instantly -- and inexpensively -- to radio and media agents worldwide. Many music industry insiders worry that fans will simply download music rather than buy albums, but Stuyvesant said that is not a concern for Wilson or Giant Records.

"This is just another outlet to allow fans to sample the music," she said. "It's only helping to expose the artist to a wider audience." (Anni Layne)