It might not be the album against which Kanye West recently felt the need to protest, but Beck’s Song Reader is so beautifully conceived and presented that in a perfect world it would warrant even more attention.
For sheer esoteric creative gumption, Song Reader puts Beck squarely back in the arena in which he’s been most entertaining – experimenting with abandon.
Intended as an album without recorded representation, Song Reader takes the focus off of Beck himself and throws its realization out to the public by providing new songs in sheet music form only. Each of the song sheets is illustrated and often festooned with side notes and extra compositions, making for a truly sumptuous collectors’ item. It comes across as an attempt to reestablish the communal element of songwriting, but on a world wide (web) scale. No mean feat. Indeed, Song Reader has been set up to accommodate the recordings of anyone willing to throw their hat into the ring.
Occupying a historic hinterland between folk songs passed on through oral tradition, and the accessibility and widespread distribution of studio recordings on solid media, it exploits the breadth of interpretation arising from being presented with just enough information needed to realize Beck’s compositions. It is both anachronism and innovation, a genuinely exciting exploration of how a song never truly belongs to anyone. It belongs to everyone. – Nick Parton
