It is ultra-quaint and ultra-post-modern simultaneously.

This is a really fantastic book.

Did I mention it sounds good? I mean, I sound good when I read the pages out loud, and that’s saying a lot. The songs are user-friendly, in easy musical keys, consciously written for people like me. Thank you, Beck!
Beautiful and Exciting and Profoundly Different: On Beck’s Song Reader by Alan Levinovitz
“Have you heard Beck’s new album? After about 20 hours with it I’ve still only heard seven songs out of 20. That’s because I’m a mediocre musician, with poor sight-reading skills and no piano handy, and Song Reader, if you didn’t already know, is just sheet music. No CD, no link to downloadable MP3s, nada. I have to puzzle out the melodies on my guitar, drawing on long forgotten undergraduate music theory to get the rhythms right. It is a pain in the ass. The album would sound better if it were professionally recorded, by a real artist. And yet. When I finally manage to play through ‘I’m Down,’ and ‘America, Here’s My Boy,’ and ‘Do We? We Do,’ it is revelatory. I have just channeled Beck’s spirit through printed paper! The first versions of Beck’s songs I hear are my own! This is an amazing feeling.” - Beautiful and Exciting and Profoundly Different: On Beck’s Song Reader by Alan Levinovitz
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“Have you heard Beck’s new album? After about 20 hours with it I’ve still only heard seven songs out of 20.

That’s because I’m a mediocre musician, with poor sight-reading skills and no piano handy, and Song Reader, if you didn’t already know, is just sheet music. No CD, no link to downloadable MP3s, nada. I have to puzzle out the melodies on my guitar, drawing on long forgotten undergraduate music theory to get the rhythms right. It is a pain in the ass. The album would sound better if it were professionally recorded, by a real artist.

And yet. When I finally manage to play through ‘I’m Down,’ and ‘America, Here’s My Boy,’ and ‘Do We? We Do,’ it is revelatory. I have just channeled Beck’s spirit through printed paper! The first versions of Beck’s songs I hear are my own! This is an amazing feeling.”

- Beautiful and Exciting and Profoundly Different: On Beck’s Song Reader by Alan Levinovitz