From what I can gather, 49:00 was suddenly and mysteriously pulled off the web for copyright problems. That damn medley.

So what do you think, five more minutes for a buck?

I’m still working on the short story that was so shitty God might smite the author for committing such a crime against humanity. Wish me luck.

Eye Weekly.com gives 49:00 four out of five stars.

The San Antonio Current does a bit of math and figures how 49:00 might just be Our Man Paul’s most profitable record ever.

The Boston Phoenix is suspicious of the odd price point of 49:00 saying, I dig some of his music, and I could probably scare up the money, but something about that price point seems incredibly fishy and uncouth, like a crazy hobo trying to sell me a dollar bill for 99 cents. Sucks to miss out on something so cool because of paranoia, don’t you think?

As of right this minute (8:10 a.m. on Wednesday), 49:00 is still #1 on the Amazon charts and featured in their New & Notable section. I wonder what this means in the greater music charts? Just how much music is Amazon selling?

Exploding now compiles a list of great songs to listen to on a jukebox in a dive-bar.

Here’s two I like because they are the kind of blogs you’d never expect to see Paul Westserberg on:
1. Apex Exposure, new media, marketing solutions (which made the unfortunate mistake of confusing loose/lose — probably my biggest pet peeve ever)
2. The Drug Law blog, which is a fan of the album

(p.s. I taught my 3-year-old nephew Liam how to do the Batdance, and I am not sure if that’s the coolest thing ever of it it’s a crime against humanity)

When I form a band some day, it will be all girls and we’ll only play ‘Mats covers and we’ll be called Sweet Georgia Breezes.

Is the marketing overpowering the music? What do you think? How do you Westernerds feel about this being Our Man Paul’s most popular record?

Ugh. Okay it seems even after the upgrade the problem persists. I’m sorry. Apparently one must delete their browser cookies (it’s under your options > privacy) once you do that you should be able to login in again.

2. Proof that Our Man Paul wants me to happy? ANOTHER song with talk of hips. Not many of you know this, but I have a hips fetish and I collect songs that mention hips. So yeah, Be My Darling floats my boat for the hips line alone. Speaking of, I can’t decide if that one line however, is:
Might even send the knight in fact
or
Might even spend the night in fact

3. At Supergenius HQ (aka my house) it is required to do a few raise the roof arm pumps whenever “Hey, Hey” comes on. Why is that? Mostly because it feels right and also, as a writer, we believe we must celebrate any song with a bit of a grammar lesson in it.

4. There is also a lot of sassy head shaking during “Squeaky Obscene.”

5. I’m on the brink today of writing something memorable — the line in “It’ll Never Die” might just become my new life’s motto.

6. The “Goodnight Sweet Prince” segue in “Guess I’ll Be Going Then” is fucking genius

7. I love that crazy slide whistle thing towards the end of “Out of My System”

8. A long time ago I decided there were two kinds of people in this world — i.e. those who like peanut M&Ms and those who like plain, those who choose Coke or Pepsi, Beatles or Stones, Husker Du or The ‘Mats, and for those who live in the Twin Cities area you’re a PiPress or a Strib person. I’m a PiPress person. I started out a Strib person, but then I fell in love with Jim Walsh’s writing when I was like 19 and my allegiance has forever been changed. So when I saw PiPress musicman Ross Raihala mentioning our made up song titles I was hella pumped.

9. Hey, Hey also talks about not forgetting the comma, clearly this man lives with a writer

10. Just exactly what is a faggot Davy Crockett?

11. I have accepted the fact that he is, in fact, wondering who Terri is going to marry. I still like calling the song “(Tell Me) Who You Gonna Marry?” because, well, the song doesn’t have to be called an exact lyric. Get a grip people.

12. Not really a fan of “Visitor’s Day”

13. You know what this album is really missing? The ability to go make me a sandwich

14. I nominate “Devil Raised a Good Boy” as the official ass shaker of 49:00

15. Here’s what I like so much about “Everyone’s Stupid” — that line about I can’t wait until I don’t know when, to me that just so sums up the thinking and feelings of a 10-year-old kid

16. The pain in his voice when he sings “fiiiiigggghhht” on “Goodnight Sweet Prince” is palpable

17. At one point I was convinced I heard a whispy snippet of “A Star is Bored” or “I Shot an Actor” but now I can’t find it.

18. This means I am either crazy or you can only hear it when you are half-paying attention

19. I want a full-out 3 minute version of “Money Goes Straight to Her Heart” and then I can write some kind of feminist diatribe about it

20. Shoulder shrugs can be subsititued for raise the roofs in “Hey, Hey”

21. If you actually think there are going to be 49 random thoughts you are sorely mistaken & I apologize for taking advantage of your gullability

22. Whenever “Squeaky Obscene” comes on, I have to listen to it three times in a row

23. I’m pretty sure Our Man Paul should release an album of nothing but covers. . . chosen by me.

24.

Some Guy has come up for some Tabs for (Tell Me) Who You Gonna Marry? You can take a look over in the forums.

There’s plenty of conventional songcraft, too, largely in the vein of his most recent solo work. Getting to it just takes a little more patience than it did with past releases.
What say ye oh my beloved Westernerds?

And here, over at On the Record, Allan Raible seems to agree about he difficultness of the record however, says, that its difficulty provides a liberating listening experience.

Here’s a random thought that I’ve just had going through all this coverage of 49:00, you could spend an entire day if you were so inclined correcting the misinformation regarding this release and Paul Westerberg in general. It just proves the point that yes, yes everyone is stupid.

So, 49:00 is still at the top of the Amazon MP3 charts.

I’m not sure why, but this Steve Cohen photo from the Guthrie shows back in 2002 randomly popped up in my searches today. It’s a beauty.

Pop Matters says 49:00 might just be the year’s best, and that it’s a lot of fun to listen to.

And one more thing before I go, okay, maybe two more things. First, it amazes me the coverage of the album all over the world. Ol’ paulwesterberg.net has been linked to sites in Italian, German, and Japanese regarding this album. It totally floats my boat seeing that.

Secondly, tomorrow I’m hoping to share some thoughts about the album tomorrow (feel free to post your own whenever you feel like it — we’ve got an open door policy here), and one of things I am pondering is the whole 49 cents thing. Does the price mean that we should not hold it up to the same standard as a record we had paid $9.99 or $14.99 for? Tomorrow I will have come up with an answer, at least an answer that works for me.