New Westerberg album is here!
Posted on July 21st, 2008 – 9:22 AMBy Chris Riemenschneider
He disguised it as a goofy, single-track download with a hand-scrawled CD cover on his (fan-run) website, but make no mistake: Paul Westerberg has just released his first album in four years. Titled “49:00″ and available through Amazon (linked www.PaulWesterberg.com), it’s a real record with individual songs and full, rocking band arrangements, presumably all played by Paul. Of course, it’s no Don Was-sized production, but it actually sounds a little more refined than a lot of his Grandpaboy basement recordings. No song titles were offered, but some of the likely titles include “Everyone’s Stupid” and “Who You Gonna Marry.”
I’ll dive in and save my judgement of the album for print in my column on Fri, but suffice it to say I think it’s worth downloading, even at the steep $.89 on Amazon vs. the $.49 from the PW site. Click here for the download link.
(If you missed the previous post about the next four Replacements reissues, click here).
12 Responses to "New Westerberg album is here!"
49:00 is $0.49 at Amazon. Just be sure to click on the Buy MP3 Album button. (And it is great!)
I just had to explain to a 7 yr old that the Replacements are a band that daddy used to go see and not a cartoon on Nick or whatever. Where has my youth gone??
Wait, I just downloaded it from Amazon, and iTunes tells me it’s only 43:55.
Overrated.
I’ve had this thing on repeat 4 times today (one spin on my computer, then burned it to a disc- and three times on my stereo). I wish I’d found out earlier, OneWhoKnows, that it’s overrated so that I might not have spent so much time enjoying it earlier.
Response to: OneWhoKnows says:
Go put back TO LISENING TO YOUR VANILLA ICE 8-TRACK, and get off of mommy’s computer.
Rocks pretty hard. This delivery scheme was pretty ingenious; hope they can sell enough to recoup.
Thanks, Paul!!!
Played it in the office on my PC. Played some old stuff too. Secretary wants to borrow my records now (she’s 19). Are Paul or the ‘mats going to play some concerts anytime soon?
At $.49, Paul will probably have to sell 10,000 copies before he’d break even on the cost of setting this little scheme up ($490). But anyway, I think the point is that’s not the point… those ‘Mats reissues are what’s making him his money this year.
He should do better than 10,000, though… the “record” shot to No. 1 on Amazon’s MP3 chart, right above the “Momma Mia” soundtrack. It ain’t iTunes, but still pretty impressive.
10,000 copies (err, downloads) at .49 would be $4,900 
Hey. If we could do math we wouldn’t be writing about music! Well, except for Battles fans. lol.
Oh, looks who’s showing off their 5th grade math skills, la-de-da!
Um… would you believe I was assuming that Paul only gets a 10% cut? I went to St. Paul public schools, what do you expect?
I meant to let Pedro and others know, the record really does only clock in at 43:55, that’s not an error. Just another weird thing about it.
