A few years later, I came across a story about a song called “Sweet Leilani,” which Bing Crosby had released in 1937. Apparently, it was so popular that, by some estimates, the sheet music sold fifty-four million copies. Home-played music had been so widespread that nearly half the country had bought the sheet music for a single song, and had presumably gone through the trouble of learning to play it. →

Beck talking about the album he is releasing as only sheet music. (via the New Yorker)