Johann Sebastian BECK to Release Album of Songs Playing Only in His Mind

Of all the wankeriffic, pretentious, self-aggrandizing - good god:

If you’ve been patiently waiting for the first new Beck album in four years we’ve got some bad news for you: If you can’t read sheet music you’re out of luck because his new collection of 20 songs is pure notation and doesn’t include any actual recordings of him performing the songs. 

Beck’s follow-up to 2008’s Modern Guilt is called Beck Hansen’s Song Reader and according to a statement by McSweeney’s, “In the wake of Modern Guilt and [2006's] 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.” 

“The songs here are as unfailingly exciting as you’d expect from their author,” the statement continues. “But..."

Sorry. I stopped reading right there. Right there after they said "The songs here are as unfailingly exciting as you’d expect from their author."

Wow. You know - even Dylan dropped a load of turds now and then. And we're supposed to take Beck's word - his own and his publisher's word on his music - at how "unfailingly exciting" these songs are? Holy shit.

I can't wait for Beck's next album: Beck Hansen's Song Thinker. "Pay Beck $28 and feel yourself ravished by His new masterpieces! But you'll have to play them yourself—as you imagine them playing in His beautiful mind!"

I mean and I've liked the guy's music. "Devil's haircut" - I wish I'd written that (or at least just the chorus line) just because. But hell on fire...

P.S. I forgot to mention: This is also meant as a "statement" about the music business, illegal downloading, and so on. And so brilliant a statement it is - because people will never be able to copy pieces of paper! Like they can music!

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