Grammy-winning singer Sheryl Crow is giving away digital copies of her album Detours to the first 50,000 people who register three friends to vote. The giveaway kicks off the 18th Annual “Rock The Vote Voter’s Registration Drive.”

“I hope people wake up and emotionally engage in issues,” Sheryl told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

“It’s about the issues that everyone’s talking about, but there’s a lot of hope,” Sheryl says of the Detours album, which covers topics including adoption, breast cancer, the war in Iraq, and the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

“At this moment in my life, writing about anything else would be uninteresting and impossible because I feel such urgency.”

Anyone who recruits three people to vote will have to log onto the Rock the Vote Web site and go through a verification process before receiving Sheryl’s album.