The Facts:

This December, Beck will be releasing a new album in collaboration with McSweeny’s (a publisher) “Beck Hansen’s Song Reader” (read more here). Strangely, however, the album will not be seen in stores on CD, MP3, or even vinyl, but rather will be featured in what Beck calls an “almost forgotten form”: as sheet music. Beck says that this reader is an experiment in what an album has the potential to be at the end of 2012.

In addition to “Do We? We Do” and “Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard,” the music reader will include 108 pages of material, as well as 20 new songs by Beck (18 of which have lyrical accompaniment). The real kicker, however, is that Beck will not be singing any of the songs in the reader. In order for less musically talented individuals to enjoy the album, songs will be posted on McSweeny’s website as performed by you, the general public.

My Take:

So, I feel bittersweet about this. I think it’s great that Beck is trying something new to jolt the music industry out of stagnation with the way they sell products, but at the same time, I feel that a majority of the population is isolated by this decision. Sure, as a musician I would LOVE to appear on McSweeny’s website playing songs written by Beck, but I can understand how people who do not play instruments would feel left out. Furthermore, this isn’t necessarily anything new. Once upon a time, in a world without the advanced technology we had today, the only way to enjoy music was to sing it yourself, or attend an event where it was being performed. Sheet music was all musicians had. Now, however, returning to those roots does seem like a lot of fun, but I feel it is impractical.

Overall, I’m very interested to see how this attempt at changing the world of music fares. Although, I do not think it will be even marginally successful.

Until next time…