On the Shelf 185: Magnetic Fields
Sep. 7th, 2017 07:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedsitter23Conventional Wisdom suggests that Stephin Merritt's greatest achievement was his 1999 triple album 69 Love Songs.
It's hard to argue. Still, as a huge Merritt fan, I find that I often reach for his single albums for listening rather than his opus. Maybe for a few different reasons.
In any case, Merritt does get inspired when he thinks big, so 50 Song Memoir has lofty ambitions. It is a song for each year of Merritt;s life. There's added caveats such as each song is limited to seven instruments, and no instrument is to appear more than seven times on the album.
It's a big success. I think partially, because given the framework, there's no bad ideas. Song ideas that might get tossed for being incomplete, fit that patchwork perfectly.
It works great as an album listen, and since we live in an ipad world, I think it also works as one song snippets in your music mix.
In any case, it's mostly a work of genius, with a few doldrums as finally reaches the end.
There are obvious singles like Hustle 76, 84 Danceteria, 79 Rock and Roll will Ruin your life and especially 02 Be True to Your Bar which seem to be destined to be anthems.
But we know about those, it's when the lines get less obvious like the love (?) story of 93 Me and Fred and Dave and Ted and the Blizzard of 78 which is a story of his early musical acts (As far as practice, we made the Shaggs look like Yes).
The amazing thing is that these songs is not that they are incredible on first listen, but once we've learned the punchlines , they are still listenable.
Merritt is all genius lyrics, but what makes this so great is the mix of music styles. It's disco and new wave. It's glam and icy goth. Merritt even writes a brilliant Cramps-ish surf rocker in the very anti-surf 08 Surfin.
The lyrics are there too. The anti-Vietnam 68 They're Killing Children Over There and the (maybe not so) deep thinking rumba-ish 67 Come Back as a Cockroach.
It's hard to think of any band that jumps genres so much in a record without reaching to bands like Ween. Yet, that comparison might not be totally apt, as no matter what genre he tries, it all sounds like the Magnetic Fields.
I love this album. It's everyhting the concept could be, but given the expectations, delivers even more.
It's hard to argue. Still, as a huge Merritt fan, I find that I often reach for his single albums for listening rather than his opus. Maybe for a few different reasons.
In any case, Merritt does get inspired when he thinks big, so 50 Song Memoir has lofty ambitions. It is a song for each year of Merritt;s life. There's added caveats such as each song is limited to seven instruments, and no instrument is to appear more than seven times on the album.
It's a big success. I think partially, because given the framework, there's no bad ideas. Song ideas that might get tossed for being incomplete, fit that patchwork perfectly.
It works great as an album listen, and since we live in an ipad world, I think it also works as one song snippets in your music mix.
In any case, it's mostly a work of genius, with a few doldrums as finally reaches the end.
There are obvious singles like Hustle 76, 84 Danceteria, 79 Rock and Roll will Ruin your life and especially 02 Be True to Your Bar which seem to be destined to be anthems.
But we know about those, it's when the lines get less obvious like the love (?) story of 93 Me and Fred and Dave and Ted and the Blizzard of 78 which is a story of his early musical acts (As far as practice, we made the Shaggs look like Yes).
The amazing thing is that these songs is not that they are incredible on first listen, but once we've learned the punchlines , they are still listenable.
Merritt is all genius lyrics, but what makes this so great is the mix of music styles. It's disco and new wave. It's glam and icy goth. Merritt even writes a brilliant Cramps-ish surf rocker in the very anti-surf 08 Surfin.
The lyrics are there too. The anti-Vietnam 68 They're Killing Children Over There and the (maybe not so) deep thinking rumba-ish 67 Come Back as a Cockroach.
It's hard to think of any band that jumps genres so much in a record without reaching to bands like Ween. Yet, that comparison might not be totally apt, as no matter what genre he tries, it all sounds like the Magnetic Fields.
I love this album. It's everyhting the concept could be, but given the expectations, delivers even more.
