Subject: Momus writes about YOU
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 14:10:26 EST

This is very serious. Please forward it to everybody you know. Thank you.

10 spaces are already filled and we only announced this 2 days ago.

For further information and to make a reservation, please contact: 
[email-masked]

**********************************************************
                                     MOMUS: "STARS FOREVER"
**********************************************************

Stars Forever is the next Momus record. A pop album of portraits.
The portrait album is a new form in pop music. It's something no 
recording artist has systematically explored. Imagine Andy Warhol's 
portraits rendered into song.

Song portraits have been made (David Bowie's 'Andy Warhol', for 
example), but no pop songwriters ever had the idea to return to the days 
of patronage, the system under which Velazquez and Rembrandt produced 
some of the world's greatest art, and make song portraits to order.
The Who did spoof commercials between tracks on 'The Who Sell Out' and 
Sigue Sigue Sputnik did the same in the 80s, but as far as I know no-one 
has ever done a series of musical portraits, which prospective sitters 
could buy just like you can an art portrait.

To have a Momus song written about you is, for longtime admirers of 
Momus, the stuff of dreams. Like booking a place on the space shuttle, 
or being painted by your favourite artist, it's beyond price.

Here's the deal, and how you can be involved in this unique one-off 
record.

The first thirty people to pay $1000 dollars to the Momus Stars Forever 
Fund will be 'painted' in song. If the work of Momus is remembered, 
having a Momus song written about you will be a direct line to 
posterity. You will be a 'star forever'.

Lyrics will be based on a 1000 word description of each sitter: good and 
bad points, the most interesting or unusual anecdotes froer a song portrait to
be made of a friend or 
lover.

How did the idea come about? In this case, as so often, necessity was 
the mother of invention. Momus and Le Grand Magistery 
were careless enough to run up some serious legal bills in 1998, for 
interesting reasons we're not allowed to talk about. If we don't pay 
them, Le Grand Magistery faces bankruptcy.
That would be a great shame, and it's not something we're willing to 
contemplate. Stars Forever is our solution.

This is the only time Momus will write this type of song. All your Stars 
Forever portrait money will go towards those astronomical legal costs.

There will be thirty songs on the Stars Forever CD, each song 
approximately two minutes long. Each song will bear the name of the 
sitter as its title. You may also have a song written about you if you 
are a company.

The songs will be in a similar style to those on The Little Red Songbook
: short, composed, epigrammatic lieder or 'chamber pop', using 
harpsichord and colourful analog beatbox and synthesiser sounds. Analog 
Baroque, in other words.

Already ten of the thirty songs have been reserved.

If you hesitate, you may miss your chance.

You can reserve your place on this record now by E mailing either:

Momus at: [email-masked]
Le Grand Magistery at: [email-masked]

When the list is full, it will be announced on the Momus website.
www.demon.co.uk/momus

This, then, will be 'patronage pop'. Not just necessity's invention, not 
just a new genre in pop music, but also, we hope, a bloody good pop 
record!

RULES
30 songs.
$1000 (US) per song. (Or, if you prefer, 850 Euros.)
Pay upfront: the song won't be written until the cheque is cleared!
There will be no negative songs about anyone. The songs will emphasise 
the creativity and uniqueness of the person portrayed.
You will have the right to approve the lyrics before the song is 
recorded.
Cheques should be in US dollars or Euros and made payable to 'Momus 
Stars Forever Fund'.
Entrants must sign a short agreement saying they give permission for 
their name to be used.
Release date: late spring / early summer 1999.
Territories: US, Britain, Europe, Japan.

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