Beck - Beck Hansen's Song Reader (December 2012)

(Source: beck.com)

  Quote

Beck has also confirmed details of the long-gestating BECK HANSEN’S SONG READER, to be released December 2012 by McSweeney’s:

In the wake of Modern Guilt and The Information, Beck’s latest album comes in an almost-forgotten form—twenty songs existing only as individual pieces of sheet music, never before released or recorded. Complete with full-color, heyday-of- home-play-inspired art for each song and a lavishly produced hardcover carrying case (and, when necessary, ukelele notation), the Song Reader is an experiment in what an album can be at the end of 2012—an alternative that enlists the listener in the tone of every track, and that’s as visually absorbing as a dozen gatefold LPs put together.

The songs here are as unfailingly exciting as you’d expect from their author, but if you want to hear “Do We? We Do,” or “Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard,” bringing them to life depends on you.

BECK HANSEN’S SONG READER features original art from Marcel Dzama (who created the imagery for Beck’s acclaimed Guero), Leanne Shapton, Josh Cochran, Jessica Hische, and many more, as well as an introduction by Jody Rosen (Slate, The New York Times) and a foreword by Beck. The package measures 9.5” x 12.5” with 108 pages comprising 20 individual full-color song booklets—18 featuring original lyrics, and 2 instrumentals—with covers from more than a dozen different artists.

Readers’ (and select musicians’) renditions of the songs will be featured on the McSweeney’s website. Check back at http://www.mcsweeney...ges/song-reader and BECK.COM for further information and updates as they are available.

Yep.

Sounds like fun. WATMM should do a compilation of interpretations of the songs and send it to Beck.

What a fucking brilliant idea!!!

:D

i will be buying this, oh yes

awesome idea.

I heard if you put the album through a spectrum analyzer, a full copy of Dianetics is revealed.

i actually like this idea. the buzz this release will generate, if everyone gets into it and contributes songs. it could be really enjoyable.

i'm hoping it's similar to the radiohead competition and big names participate^-^ (or am i expecting too much from a silly beck release?)

Well shit! I'd better get one of these and make the album myself!

I like the idea of this!

good ol' Beck.

  On 8/9/2012 at 1:21 AM, Rubin Farr said:

I heard if you put the album through a spectrum analyzer, a full copy of Dianetics is revealed.

heh

  On 8/9/2012 at 10:08 AM, pigster said:

i actually like this idea. the buzz this release will generate, if everyone gets into it and contributes songs. it could be really enjoyable.

i'm hoping it's similar to the radiohead competition and big names participate^-^ (or am i expecting too much from a silly beck release?)

I'm betting some big names will participate, and it could be really interesting. Essentially it would be like hearing cover albums, except you have no idea what the original sounds like or is supposed to sound like. This is quite pretentious but I'm anxious to hear some good stuff from it. By good musicians in a style I like, not by your average YouTube attention whore. You could have bands you like recording the entire album and it would be like a brand new album! I don't know this could be amazing.