Song Reader, Beck’s New Album to be Released as Sheet Music Only

Beck has collaborated with McSweeney’s to produce his new album, Beck Hansen’s Song Reader. This album is unlike any other album he’s made: all twenty songs will be released as sheet music only. It’s also an invitation for his fans to bring the songs from the album to life, some of which will be featured on the McSweeney’s website in the future.

Song Reader will feature original art by Marcel Dzama and will be released by McSweeney’s in December 2012.

…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.

Mock-up

images via McSweeney’s

via Ted Rheingold, Jamie OShea and Forbes