LightSpeed Champion to release 50 albums...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/dec/10/lightspeed-champion-50-bootleg-albums?&CMP=EMCMUSEML429

Lightspeed Champion to release 50 'bootleg' albums

Step aside Sufjan Stevens – the prolific Dev Hynes has recorded 50 LPs to be made available as free downloads. Shame that most of them are 'awful' ...

Champion's Dev Hynes has announced that he will release not one, not 10, but up to 50 "bootleg" albums recorded over the last two years. The first of these, House-Sitting Songs, is available now as a free download.

"I decided that in every gap in the week that I found myself sitting down, or watching TV or waiting for tea to brew or logging on to Facebook, I would write and record a song instead," Hynes explained on his blog. "[I'd do it] without any real thought ... by making words up essentially as I went along."

Hynes told Spinner that he has 50 of these albums ready, "at the very least". "Some, I would say, are awful ... But mostly I find it all interesting. It's an experiment. Even some that I don't like particularly, I like the idea behind it." These improvised, stream-of-consciousness records are distinct from Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You, Lightspeed Champion's proper second album, due in February 2010. While he has been slaving over this release, the bootlegs are casual affairs. "Some things are worth paying for and some aren't," Hynes admitted.

At first, the former Test Icicle didn't even plan to make them available. "What triggered it off was I was looking to see if it had been snuck online," he said. "Then I saw that someone had made a Wikipedia page for it and I thought that was interesting, someone really does want to hear it. So, I thought of really doing it and chronicling it. Every now and then, if I find an album that I think is kind of OK, I'll put one up. Maybe once a week."

Hynes recorded House-Sitting Songs in May 2009, while, er, house-sitting in Manhattan. "The person in question was a musician and had a couple guitars lying around, as well as mini keyboards and drum pads for their kid to play on," he explained. The album includes two covers, one originally recorded by Canadian indie-rockers the Organ, the other by 1950s duo Patience and Prudence, which now features the Like's Charlotte Froom. "The new Lightspeed album had been finished for a couple months ... [I] wanted to just write and play dumb jangly guitar pop with just chords and simple melodies over the top."

The last well-known artist to talk about a 50-album project was Sufjan Stevens, whose 50-state opus ended in disillusionment and ennui. Let's hope Hynes stays cheery.

I mean, I just don't get it...

By my reckoning, one good song is worth more than 50*12 knock-offs, right?

Depends on what he's trying to achieve. He's not claiming that the songs are any good. Knocking out a load of songs quickly can be a way of trying out new ideas/techniques/instruments, or getting through writer's block, or just unwinding and relaxing after the completion of a proper album.

LightSpeed Champion to reach 50 listeners

And he's also pre-empting and circumventing the possibility that somehow someone will get hold of this stuff and try and charge money for it.

and he's also guaranteeing that random attempts to trawl for free lightspeed champion songs will net mostly garbage

mostly?

I knew this guy was a genius when I saw an interview with him and he said he usually ended his songs with "an outro that goes to the end".

the only thing i've heard by this guy was on a tv appearance where he very cleverly managed to extract all the funk and soul from a cover of Billie Jean by playing acoustic guitar and singing very badly.

...that said, for some reason I kind of like this idea. I'm not gonna listen to any of them, but it's such a goofy idea I say more power to it.

I've listened to this now. LC could probably have a profitable sideline selling his bootlegs to mobile phone companies to use in their TV commercials.

Isn't this basically what Robert Pollard's been doing for the last 20 years?

It basically sounds like exactly what it is, a guy relaxing/goofing off with some instruments.

The last well-known artist to talk about a 50-album project was Sufjan Stevens, who retains this status.

if you release albums at a density of greater than 4 in 3 years then you are a disgusting, disgusting savage imo

This month I'm doing three albums - that co-incidentally sound like a guy relaxing/goofing off with some instruments...

if you release albums at a density of greater than 4 in 3 years then you are a disgusting, disgusting savage imo

Derek Bailey = disgusting savage

He was just getting his average up in advance of his recent quiet spell.

He's the Tupac of Improv

The last well-known artist to talk about a 50-album project was Sufjan Stevens, who retains this status.

Can I announce my intention to release 50 albums as well, thereby assuring my status as the first hopelessly obscure non-artist to talk about such a project?

Get yourself over to inudge and you can have this done by the end of the day...