Welcome to fifth grade music class. I am your teacher “Mr. Arbitrary Blogger” And I am here to show you the sheet music of the latest ‘Beck’ album ‘Beck Hanson’s Song Reader.’ The album is due December 11th, and will feature completely original material from Beck, only released as sheet music so you can play along.
Let’s begin:
I feel like a child who skipped music class for additional PE. Alternative rock artist ‘Beck’ plans a 100+ book of sheet music and images through Beck’s career and primarily with his recent work. Of course, the album itself won’t be heard audibly from Beck, but in the form of sheet music. Conceptually, it is about fans making their own versions of the song. Literally, there will be a whole lot of amateur and terrible Beck covers from middle-aged men on YouTube.
I don’t want to wait for a new Beck album, only to have the songs be performed by everyone BUT Beck. Surely, it is a creative idea, because it has fans and non-fans alike talking about the radical deviation from a traditional album ‘Beck Hanson’s Song Reader is shaping up to be. And in all fairness, Beck has established a list of artist who will be covering some of the songs to be released n the website. I would not be surprised if the best covers were voted by fans and released in hardcopy as a sort of alternative to the new Beck material. It would be a natural and intriguing step in the right direction.
Music is auditory. It is meant to be heard. With this, it gives others an opportunity to bring Beck songs to life in their own creative way. It could end up being too demanding for fans to care, yet it could also be a phenomenal experiment of music in the web 3.0 age. Time will tell.
Beck’s new “album” will be released by the end of this year on McSweeney’s- the book publisher.
