What inspired the idea of 52?
I did it just to challenge myself and see if I could write that much and record myself, which I'm not accustomed to doing. Also, I just thought that putting about another album didn't appeal to me right now. I just didn't think it was something that was going to propel my career, given the state of the industry. And the fact that I was leaving my record label [Columbia] back in the fall; I wanted to start fresh with an idea that most people hadn't really heard of.

How does it work?
Every Monday, a new song gets released through e-mail if you sign up for a subscription service. For $20 you get all the songs, and if you sign up halfway through the year you get all the songs that I released prior to that date.

Do you think the album is dead?
Yeah. I do think it is. And I don't know how it's going to go in the next few years, but I do feel like people are going to start doing similar things to what I'm doing, if not the same thing, where you subscribe to some sort of service, much like cable TV. Maybe I'm getting a head start, or maybe I'm not. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and this whole thing is going to be about trying to write as much as possible. And if that's the case, then so be it.

That's not a bad case scenario.
No, the worst-case scenario is if I can't finish. I'm trying not to think that way, especially since so many people have signed up. I don't want to have to return their money.

Where are you recording?
In my apartment in Brooklyn. I record pretty much everything in my bedroom. It's not particularly acoustically perfect, but it does the job. And I have this alcove in my bedroom where most of my gear is. I have a keyboard and mic set up pretty much all the time, and I recently bought a few toys — a glockenspiel and a ukulele.

Do you have ground rules? Yeah, there are rules. I'm not doing covers. This is all going to be original music. I'm trying very hard to make sure that one song a month is just me and the guitar, or me and some instrument. I'll really spend more time on the production of the song, so there will be live drums. I'm doing a lot more keyboard work, and in June I think I'll be doing some piano-related stuff. You know, trying to mix it up as much as possible.

Do remixes count as new songs?
Doing a remix would be interesting, and I've actually flirted with that kind of thing. Not so much a dance remix, but taking a ballad and speeding it up, or vice versa. People have asked if they can get some alternate versions of songs. There was one in April I did two versions of and just gave people the other version. That kind of thing is cool, but I don't want to count it as a whole new song, because it's really not.

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