Westerberg Offers New Album For 49 Cents

Updated:

June 29, 2009 1:11 pm

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However an unlikely candidate he may be for such a move, Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg has become the latest artist to embrace the internet for rapid dissemination of new music. On Monday, Westerberg made available a 44-minute single MP3 file, called “49:00,” for $.49 per download. For the dozen plus songs on the single, that’s less than one iTunes song or a drink from a vending machine. Its even less than what “a CD would have cost in 1900, if CDs had been invented then,” noted to the U.K. Guardian.

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Amazon.com is handling the commerce via a link from the WESTERBERG WEBSITE, and Tunecore began carrying the release yesterday.

“He finished it Monday, sent it to me on Tuesday and it was out this weekend,” Westerberg’s manager, Darren Hill, told Billboard.com. “It’s just wonderful… the freedom an artist can enjoy these days is fantastic,” he said.

In keeping with Westerberg tradition, the file has no track list or lyrics. He played all the instruments on the lo-fi recordings, which often feature two songs playing at once for a few seconds and short snippets that abruptly cut off. “It’s almost like you’re scanning a radio dial… you’re getting a glimpse inside of Paul’s head,” Hill told Billboard.

“49:00” concludes with a peculiar combination of partial covers such as the Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You,” The Beatles’ “Hello, Goodbye,” Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild,” and Elton John’s “Rocketman,” to name a few.

The Replacements’ major-label catalog will be reissued in expanded form Sept. 23 via Rhino.