Pitchfork

The schizo-pop duo of Ryan Bassler and Eric Haugen, otherwise known as LMP, otherwise known as La Musique Populaire, once known as the Lorenzo Music Philharmonic, have finally completed their hyper-ambitious project entitled A Century of Song. The gist of this project was to record one song per each year of the 20th century, from 1900-1999, each song seemingly chosen with usual disregard for popular status, and occasional disregard for "good" status. They began in late '99 with 1952's "Yakety Yak," and after two years of cruising the century's most idiosyncratic tunes in their most idiosyncratic style, completed with Bowie's 1977 classic, "Sound and Vision." To cap it off, they tagged on a couple of originals for 2000 and 2001-- namely, "A Century of Song" and "Does Anyone Remember a Century of Song?"

All 102 songs are currently available for download in MP3 format at the Polyholiday Records website. As for the future of "the longest pop album ever recorded," clocking in at a crazy six-and-a-half hours, LMP will release a limited-edition box set of all of the songs on Polyholiday, at which point the MP3s will disappear forever. Sure, you could neatly burn all of the songs to five 80-minute CD-Rs before that happens, if you want to be a bastard. But just remember that any proceeds from this box set will be hard-earned and well-deserved, because not only does it encompass 100 years of pop music through the lens of around 35, but it's actually pretty good.