He's Loving This Beyoncé Comparison

In case you haven't heard, Michael Cera released a surprise album. I'll let that sink in for a moment. Most of us didn't even know that Cera was interested in music, let alone that he was good enough at it to release an entire 18-track album with three tracks as a bonus if you actually buy it. As it stands, not even Cera thought he was good enough at music to release an entire album until a friend encouraged him to just put it all out there. Unfortunately, Cera didn't release the name of that friend so we can all send him fruit baskets, thank you cards, and our firstborns. I don't know about you, but I can no longer imagine a world in which I can't listen to Michael Cera's music while I watch Arrested Development.

"I'd never had the courage to release anything I'd made musically, and finally a friend said that he thought I was being too careful with my music," said Cera when he was interviewed by The Huffington Post. "I mean, it takes a bit of a leap of faith when you’re giving something to the whole world to piss on and talk about and pull apart, but at one point I felt totally okay with it."

And that was how Cera ended up putting true that online for free streaming, but it really caught fire when his Superbad co-star Jonah Hill tweeted a link to the album and blew all of our minds. Michael Cera! Music! What! And, as it turns out, it was actually good music, if you're into low-key indie and folk music. (I am not, but even I found myself tapping my foot along with some of the songs.)

Apparently, much like the great queen Beyoncé, Cera recorded most of the songs at his home in New York and he even did all of the editing on Garage Band like a True Artist. The end result was supremely decent and totally worthy of all of the press it's been getting. "I mean, it does feel good to get the comparison [to Beyoncé]," Cera joked. "I get compared to her for a lot of other reasons and it's nice to finally get compared to her musically."

He also cleared up the story behind the album's very DIY cover, if by DIY you mean "literally take a photograph and that's it, that's your whole cover right there". The picture is one of him with his sister's boyfriend's daughter and it was the right size for his profile. The simple approach proved to be the best approach for Cera and hopefully this isn't the last we'll hear from him on the surprise album front. I mean, despite Cera's joke, how many chances are we really going to get to compare Michael Cera to Beyoncé?

Image: mahgifstash/Tumblr; MichaelCera/BandCamp