I AM A RESIDENT! - Historical

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I AM A RESIDENT!(2018)

OverviewTracksLiner NotesThe Players

In late 2017, The Residents announced a new project that would allow their fans to participate on a level they never could before. There had been a few previous "audience participation" projects in the past - most notably for The River of Crime and The Bunny Boy. But the former asked for videos at a time before everybody carried a high definition camera in their pocket, and the latter was more of a question and answer format, not really conducive to the public's creativity.

But the time had now come. Beyond just cameras, many people had fully functional recording studios in phones. This was the moment in history where the public was most similar to The Residents - there was a relatively new technology in front of them, and maybe they didn't quite know how to use it, but the allure of creation could not be stopped.

The initial idea was simple enough: ask fans to record their own versions of Residents songs, and the best would be included on a compilation. To be perfectly honest, The Residents didn't expect the incredible result. They thought there would be a clear group of 20 or so songs that would be deemed good enough, and certainly no more than 50 total submissions. Boy were they way off, and never so happy to be so wrong.

With nearly 200 submissions, The Residents changed gears, and what was originally going to be a quick compilation of crowd-sourced material became a new creative project unto itself. The group went into the studio with the recordings, and came out with an entirely different beast.

The I AM A RESIDENT! suite was pressed to CD and sent to those who had pre-ordered via the group's PledgeMusic campaign. The public CD release is two discs, with the second disc being a selection of the original covers. Additionally, the vinyl version is composed of yet another selection of original covers.