To tie in with the release of his Songs For Christmasalbum a few years ago, the mini-musical genius that is Sufjan Stevens organised a pretty nifty competition.
Called “The Great Sufjan Song Xmas Xchange”, Stevens asked people to send in their own self-composed Christmas song and he promised a very special prize to the eventual winner. More than 600 people sent in songs, and after a carefully listening to them all, Stevens said that he thought the best one was by a 33-year-old theatre director from Brooklyn, Alec Duffy.
The prize turned out to be full legal ownership of an unreleased Stevens song called The Lonely Man Of Winter. Remarkably – given Stevens' commercial pulling power – there were no conditions attached to the prize; the song could be used/distributed as the winner saw fit.
“This new song becomes your song,” said Stevens. “You can hoard it for yourself, sell it to a major soft drink corporation or share it for free on your website. No one except me and you will hear this song – unless you decide otherwise.”
This was quite a dilemma for Alec Duffy. He could flog this song and make a good bit of money. He could put it up on the net and let everyone hear it. But he decided against both these options and instead came up with a novel idea.
Duffy opted for a sort of social experiment, “something that would recapture an era when to get one’s hands on a particular album or song was a real experience”. He decided that he would hold once- or twice-weekly listening sessions in his Brooklyn apartment. He would arrange tea and biscuits, while the listener would have to listen to the song through headphones (to prevent anyone recording it), and depending on how many showed up, there would be a talk/ discussion afterwards. The listening sessions were free of charge.
Over the past year or so people have travelled from all corners of the world to Duffy’s Brooklyn apartment. He’s not sure about exact numbers but it’s somewhere in the region of 100 so far. For many of those who travelled from near and far, the attraction was not just in listening to a song they would, most likely, never hear again, but it was the involvement in something so anti-Web 2.0, something so contradictory to the incontinent rush of information and music we’re used to these days over various social networking sites. It was a return to a time when music represented something special — not something flung out for free with a newspaper.
This is the finest way we felt we could curate this song,” said Duffy. “It brings people together rather than being it being lost among so many iTunes songs.”
Not everyone is in harmonious agreement. The music bloggers (bless ’em) have been calling Duffy all sorts of nasty names for his actions – “He is a bastard”; “He is an arrogant douche bag” being the more thought-out criticisms.
Given that Duffy could have sold the song to Pepsi or allowed Burger King to use it in a TV advertisement, you can only applaud him for his non-profit- making actions.
Here’s an idea: realising that not everyone can get to (or even wants to get to) Brooklyn, Duffy has talked about bringing the song on a European tour.
It surely can’t be beyond the budget of the Electric Picnic people to fly Duffy and his song over to Dublin and then put him in a “Sufjan Stevens Song Special” tent at the festival where Picnic-goers could have the chance to listen to this “lost” song. Tea, biscuits and discussion groups included.
Over to you John Reynolds.
www.hoipolloiworld.com/ Sufjan_Listening_Sessions.
