Several weeks ago we announced the very exciting news that Paul Westerberg would self-release his next album, “49:00 … Of Your Time/Life,” through Amazon and TuneCore as a $0.49 download. At less than the price of a cup of coffee, this was a deal too good to pass up.
The album is a ramshackle, basement-recorded mess that teeters on the brink of disaster without ever falling off the rails completely. For fans of Westerberg’s solo records ― as well as those of his alter-ego Grandpaboy ― this style came as little surprise and continues in the tradition of his most recent run of albums released through Vagrant Records.
Fans of Westerberg and of The Replacements eagerly jumped on the opportunity to buy “49:00,” but only the quickest and most discerning fans actually got to download the album. Shortly after going live, it was pulled by Amazon and TuneCore with no explanation.
The saga continued when Westerberg released a follow-up single, “5:05,” for download. That too has now been pulled with no explanation. Of course, speculation has run rampant across Westerberg-centric message boards. One of the more popular theories blames the album’s disappearance on a song medley that includes an uncleared Beatles sample (from “Oh Darling”). Others pinpoint some unauthorized covers and the stream of profanity that runs throughout the continuous 43:55 minute MP3. Still others posit that it was the misstated length of the album — the last five minutes appear on the follow-up release — that did in “49:00.”
Some Westerberg fans have even gone deeper, speculating that “5:05” was written in anticipation of and released in response to the ensuing controversy. One junior conspiracy theorist posits that “505” is a section of the penal code that deals with copyright infringement, while another points to the lyrical references in “5:05” to it “not being about the money.”
Either way fans are satisfied. The normally reclusive Westerberg who has been inactive for the past year due to a hand injury is releasing his music almost as soon as it is recorded—49:00 was available for download only a few days after he finished it—and even able to react almost as quick. The new delivery method and the discussion surrounding it put Westerberg back in the spotlight and announced a return to form for the songwriter after being sidelined for over a year. Nothing further has been announced thus far but fans and critics will certainly be keeping an ear open for not juts what the next project will be but also what kind of hoops they will have to jump through to get a copy.