― Sean, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Sean, you and I must have a CD microwave party someday. Though actually I do own three albums and have a favorite track, namely his cover of Gary Numan's "I Die You Die," which is sublime. I resist the 69 bandwagon to this day, though, as what I've heard from it moved me not at all.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― keith, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Also, I have very fond memories of working on a large, physical project with a couple of other people who also knew 69LS inside and out, and singing the songs in order, from memory, with my friends. (Well, we got about halfway into disc 2 before we finished.)
I mean, it's mannered as fuck, and if you can't deal with that then don't bother, but the high points are SUBLIME. (This applies even more to the 6ths--"Waltzing Me All The Way Home" gives me shivers.)
― Douglas, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― anthonyeaston, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Matt Denner, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― m jemmeson, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Nick, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Good: SM's voice. He also has a knack for a pretty 80s melody. (Of course, real 80s pop records can be found for $1 second-hand.)
Dubious: Total lack of ability on any instrument. Things were better when it was all-electronic but I'm not even convinced anymore that the electronic pop production is that much more impressive than 'NSync's.
The stripped-down instrumentation on 69LS (which should maybe have been called 69 Hate Songs) serves to put more focus on the lyrics, and here comes the crux of my problem, which I find hard to articulate. He gets compared to Morrissey but, at least with the Smiths, Morrissey wrote about specific situations, with social context and emotional nuance, resonant because they challenged romantic ideals with human detail. Self-pity was usually undercut by the illumination of the narrator's self-delusions (as in "I Know It's Over," "Reel Around the Fountain"). With some exceptions, Stephin Merritt's lyrics lack these qualities and I don't find them saying much to me. For the most part, they seems to be a string of variants on "You left me and now everything is horrible" - not that this is intrinsically useless but one could easily hear the same thing on the radio for no cost at all. The humour sometimes comes off as just as facile as the pathos. On the level of craft, he relies heavily on cliches, which are sometimes twisted cleverly and sometimes just left to sit there.
There is, as has been widely noted, quite a bit of filler on 69 LS. I'm not saying it's a total dud but I'm not sure his entire oeuvre amounts to as much as Pulp's much more affordable Different Class. I feel like I've been had.
― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Kodanshi, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
his lyrics do leave me cold. There seems to me such a friggin' huge emotional distance between his subject matter in the listener. His words are so thick with commentary on the popular song there is no room for left for feeling. But he does write some great melodies and I get something out of that.
― Mark, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
But that's just my opinion. My extremely, extremely strong opinion.
― Ally, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Morrissey comparison?? red herring - no comparison, really.
Merritt all about negativity (break-up, bitterness, etc) - ? - I can't see that this is borne out by the actual material.
Lack of playing ability: I have to disagree, at least in that the guitar player and cellist are really talented. cf. for instance the gtr playing on 'Boa Constrictor'. (But I accept that you don't in general like the lo-fi sound of the LP.)
Finally - what is an 80s melody? How is it different from a 20s, 60s, 70s, 90s etc melody?
You're right that he doesn't marry rich slices of evocative, scene-setting lyrics with lines about love in the way Morrissey used to. But no way are his songs always bloodless and unaffecting. Off 69 Love Songs try 'Meaningless', 'Yeah! Oh Yeah!', 'Absolutely Cuckoo', 'No One Will Ever Love You', 'Washington D.C.' (where what a cynic might see as sniggering pastiche instead comes across to me as a wonderful reaffirmation of belief in the simple truth of love - "It's just that's where my baby lives, that's all.."), 'All My Little Words' etc etc. And that's not to denegrate the ones where he is just playing around with the form either (with 'Love is Like Jazz" exceptions, of course...)
― turner, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― gareth, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― anthonyeaston, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Tom, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Since the mid-eighties at latest, there's been this omnipresent fallacy in the rock/pop world that "emotion" can only be conveyed spontaneously -- that "emotion" equates to lyrics that sound like stream-of-consciousness scribblings, and is inherently absent from anything that anyone sat down and thought about and wrote. You can trace this back to the whole Appolonian / Dionysian dialectic in art, or you can just take this pithy quote from the guy who runs Double Agent: "It's the difference between the Smiths -- the articulate expression of emotion -- and Pearl Jam or Soundgarden -- the emotional expression of inarticulateness." It's a hideous fallacy -- see any emo record for evidence of this assertion - - and it's already proven untenable, in that if it were true, the Smiths would be the most emotionless rock band of the past two decades.
This, in essence, seems to be Merritt's entire intellectual agenda w/r/t the pop song -- (and I'd point out to Mark that 69 Love Songs is far more aggressive about this agenda than most of his other work, toward which I can't really understand the "distant" charge being levelled). What makes Merritt valuable, in my eyes, is that he's one of very few people today who view the text of the pop song as something that can be whole and coherent for purposes other than humor or distance. He writes as a songwriter -- rather than trying, like so many singers, to pretend that some screen has been dropped and he's right there with you, rambling in your ear, he accepts the fact that he is writing texts for your consumption and entertainment, emotionally and intellectually, and this opens up a whole realm of address and possibility that's completely absent from the aspiring-poet's-diary school of lyricists. (His whole career is worth it for one line: "You won't be happy with me, but give me one more chance; you won't be happy anyway." Who else could do that?) I'd argue that this same sort of approach extends to the music he makes, as well, but this post is probably growing long enough as it is. Suffice it to say that I feel like there's a whole complex underlying his aims, specific fallacies that he's valuable for refuting, and chief among them is this idea that it's more authentic or more emotional to watch people do than it is to watch them think -- a concept that's largely alien to me, because my primary joy in art and words comes from the fact that they alone can serve as a conduit of people's thoughts.
That said, Holiday is, like, the greatest thing ever, except maybe the Dean Wareham song on the first 6ths album.
― Nitsuh, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sean, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
For me, the emotion level doesn't enter into it in my dislike of the Fields. I think that Merrit's lyrics are obnoxious and overreaching - I personally don't think his overvaunted wit is much of anything. I find the sound to be unforgivable. And Merrit's vocals are enough to make me shoot someone (and his choices in fellow vocalists are only a step above him). It all really boils down to the sound of it, for me - it sounds like a perfect sonic description of everything I hate about music. I can't describe it any more than that.
But yes, I agree that the concentration on that above all else is a mistake. I'm a Merritt agnostic, though, and I find that, far too often, the songs feel like an intellectual exercise. I find myself jerked out of any engagament with them by a recognition of the technique, which is so foregrounded in 69LS that I, like Mark, can appreciate the thing without ever getting anywhere near to loving it.
I'm generally reluctant to talk about literature, but maybe a parallel's with Georges Perec, whose literary career largely concerned rules and constraints. His 'Life A User's Manual' is may favourite novel ever: it succeeds in engaging me in both form and content where his 'A Void' fails to overcome its constraint (outrageously, omitting the letter e completely) amd ends up an interesting lexical exercise.
"Strange Powers", on the other hand, has strange powers over me.
― Tim, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― anthony, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
As for Mark's comments, I'd offer the following sort of over- theoretical explanation of what is actually a fairly obvious concept. In aesthetics, I think, there are many instances in which going very far in one direction actually brings you around to its opposite -- my best examples of which are those sprightly, bouncy Cure songs that somehow seem like the logical end-point of gloom and frustration, toeing the inevitable line between "manic" and "depressed." With regard to my comments above, I'd say that Merritt, lyrically, manages to do exactly that w/r/t "emotional connection" and "spontaneity," . . . actually, I have to do something now, so I can't finish this thought. Suffice it to say that a line like "come back from San Francisco / and kiss me, I've quit smoking / I miss doing the wild thing with you" is pretty hard to call stilted or distant or emotionless or something-you-can't-relate to -- this is about as plain and everyday an emotional admission as you could possibly want from a song.
― Ronan, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I regard Merritt almost as Morrissey once used to regard himself - in terms of finality, endings, and tying things up. The MFs mean a great deal to me, partly because of my investment in "the pop song", which (investment) has only been clarified and intensified (not dissipated) by (eventually) hearing them.
From my POV, 69LS is a Very Major Event In Pop History. Holiday, on the other hand, I think is close to his weakest work ever.
=
>>> I appreciated that particular articulation more than, in the past, I've appreciated a lot of articulations of why people *like* the [MFs'] music.
― absolutely cuckoo, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I can't give a technical explanation right now but Gershwin's "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" sounds like a 20s melody to me, "White Rabbit" like a 60s melody, "Bizarre Love Triangle" like an 80s melody. When the Bangles covered "Hazy Shade of Winter," it still sounded like a 60s melody. When Frente did an acoustic version of "BLT" in the 90s it still sounded like an 80s melody. Has to do, I think, with the lengths of the phrases and the intervals chosen.
Lo-fi isn't a problem for me. I don't think 69LS is more lo-fi than my favourite Sonic Youth albums. It's definitely more hi-fi than anything I've done! The guitar line on "Boa Constrictor," which is probably as good as the playing gets on the set, strikes me as competent not exceptional. I definitely think there's more musical substance to the MF when they go electronic. "Ability" was probably a poor choice of terms on my part - "accomplishment" maybe.
I'm assuming that the recent posts defending SM's lyrics are in response to Mark's criticisms and not to mine because my problem wasn't with Merritt trying to be witty and ironic and crafty and distanced. I was in fact looking for witty, well-crafted pop songwriting. I think I just generally find that too often they offer romantic tropes, stock situations, and non-reflexive (is that a real term?) self-pity. Or something like that. I like that the Smiths could create characters with whom you could empathize but also realize their (and your) failings and errors - I like my self-pity with a level of self-consciousness.
I hate the Cure's lyrics for their romantic melodrama.
(Rock ballads that I like I think I usually like despite the lyrics.) "Come back from San Fransisco/And kiss me I've quit smoking" was one of the best moments on the set I thought -- it was too bad it had to be followed by "I miss doing the wild thing with you."
.. "My Heart's Runnin' Round Like a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off" - that's the tune I can't shake.
They're great live - but 69LS didn't do much for me. Not that I thought it was drivel - I just never got into it like Holiday or Get Lost.
― Dave225, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Sonically I enjoy them as well. Summer Lies and Busby Berkly Dreams are beautiful songs, even without words.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ian, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
i rather like the Magnetic Fields now. I still only own that one album. I may have listened to the whole album, every song back to back, once. I don't care whther it's sincere or clever. It has some catchy little tunes for me, and i like the fact that it's a jumbled mess, like a big box full of broken toys.
i rather like the Eggers comparison, even though i don't want to get into the cleverness for its own sake mode, as i may have managed to avoid thinking of the Magnetic Fields critically altogether, and been healthier for it in this specific case.
― badger, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
It might be me, but from what I can tell from a lot of lines being quoted here in Merritt's defense, *they're* pretty melodramatic as well. In which case, what is more important, the song or how it is sung? ;-)
But is that enough reason to care? I realize I'm having (self-amused) fun by bringing up these points, but still, I seem to have moved from a point last year where I believed people really did care about the MFs to now, where I'm actually not so sure about that anymore. I don't doubt anyone's sincerity here, I should note, but there's something odd about this debate that seems to be focusing less about Merritt and his work and more about how to read him. And surely the answer to that question is -- however the hell you want to.
But what I was about to post was this:
Actually, the more I think about it, part of the thrill of his material is that it essentially dares you to reject his texts, dares you to assume he's kidding -- much of the enjoyment I take from his lyrics lies in the fact that his authorial stance allows him to lay out lines of such straightforward clarity that they seem almost taboo if interpreted as "sincerity." (The taboo, of course, being the long-running post-Elvis "Thou shalt not employ formal rhetorical devices in popular music.") I'm not levelling this charge at anyone here, but I feel as if I've met quite a few people -- Mag Fields fans and haters alike -- whose opinions on Merritt are solely based on their inability to take certain tropes seriously: they either find him wonderfully funny/clever or insufferably funny/clever because it's not occurred to them that his more surprising metaphors may not be intended as humor. But I'm going to resign from this thread and take that thought home to work on it some more, because I feel like there's something to it -- some sort of rebellion-through-structure thing -- that is key to my appreciation of a whole lot of different bits of music.
As a specific response to the standard lyrical criticisms, I'd submit 69 Love Songs' "Meaningless," one of the finest fuck-you songs I've heard in years. But then again, this thread is tending toward a "Lyrical Aspects of 69 Love Songs" classic or dud rather than an actual Mag Fields classic or dud, so . . . let's talk about old stuff.
*adopts Bugs Bunny voice* Ain't I a STINKER? (As opposed to a Sinker, natch.)
some sort of rebellion-through-structure thing
"Hey hey, you think it's a puncture/Turning rebellion into structure."
*pause*
Er, anyway. A rebellion through structure? *considers* ...I'm leery of such approaches, or rather the way of phrasing that, seems to be the eternal problem of exchanging one ideology for another and back again.
Among some folks I know, that is precisely the answer. ;-) But that's your point as well, natch. I guess anything could be rebellion, but that implies there's something to rebel *against* -- and with me and my r.s. nature, I'd argue that's chasing at shadows. I wouldn't so much see it as rebelling against something as reacting to it -- the idea of rebelling being a self-contained construct.
Musician to self: "Lo! I respond to the tyranny of presumed unfettered emotion!"
Outside viewpoint: "A tyranny existed?"
Maybe i'll post something longer tomorrow. i'm lost for words, all you dud-sayers.
― Alan at home, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
We're evil that way. Death to consensus! ;-)
It might be me, but from what I can tell from a lot of lines being quoted here in Merritt's defense, *they're* pretty melodramatic as well.
Well, yeah, that was sort of my point. That once you get past the concept and the cleverness it's the same old same old.
So your article rebelling against the 'indie consensus' on Merritt was what, exactly? ;)
― Tom, Wednesday, 31 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I really don't see this as a question of the records sounding "good", in an audiophile sense.
'Holiday' shows a much greater investment in texture than 69 LS, an interest in developing a unique and immersive soundworld on record whereas 69 LS is presented more as an audio 'songbook'.
Holiday might be a "budget" immersive soundworld. Does it really matter? Part of what Holiday is, is a demonstration of what a DIY record can be, how it doesn't just sound like everything else.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Monday, 21 February 2022 22:26 (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
good post that explains my great liking for Holiday - it isn't 'well recorded' or expensive-sounding (69LS feels MUCH more expensive) but it is a bedroom synth-layering masterpiece
if anything, The Charm... has an even more astonishing sound-world, with a sort of bizarro alt-country thrown in amongst the twinkling, meshing anti-pop
both albums (and the first two) are not 'well recorded' but the sonic detail is RICH and the textures are weird (and, I find, delightful)
― imago, Monday, 21 February 2022 23:23 (two years ago) link
As I recall there are things like 'heaven in a black leather jacket' on the first that sound cheap
Fwiw, "Heaven" was released as a single well before the album. Like, two years before? So maybe that accounts for the lower-fi sound, though imo I like that particular sound.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 February 2022 23:27 (two years ago) link
All day snow covered usNight-time: it was always nightThe people on the street were made of meatBlack girl, trucks ran us downBlue boy...The people on the sidewalk were traced in chalkWhale embryos filled your enormous roomScreech-owl kachinas built your spiritual roomWe were kings, kings!We were kings, kings!That seems to me vastly more literary than anything on 69 Love Songs.
That seems to me vastly more literary than anything on 69 Love Songs.
Also one of the greatest things they ever wrote. It probably couldn't have worked for long, they couldn't have made five albums of songs like that, but Distant Plastic Trees is such an incredible portrait of a MOMENT where it made sense for them to do this.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 21 February 2022 23:28 (two years ago) link
Honestly, I'm a much bigger fan of Magnetic Fields live than the albums, entirely related to the way they're recorded. There are some KCRW sessions that are the ones I return to most.
Even a phone-mic version like this works more for me:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkz0UruvXSc
― deep luminous trombone (Eazy), Tuesday, 22 February 2022 00:37 (two years ago) link
"The Magnetic Fields lose something on record but as a live band they kill" is inner-circle Slatepitch, kudos
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 22 February 2022 00:40 (two years ago) link
"Holiday", singular. Got it. Thanks for correcting.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 22 February 2022 03:01 (two years ago) link
...and that might be kind of significant, actually: a reference to Charles Ives?
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 22 February 2022 03:03 (two years ago) link
b/c these records (Holiday, Highway Strip) exist at an intersection between "auteur" and "homemade" mindsets. The way he refers to "real" instruments underscores this, I think. It's not like these are generic Casio preset records, he does astonishing things with reverb for example. But it makes a statement that if Charles Ives was alive and working today, wouldn't he do everything in a bedroom studio?
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 22 February 2022 03:13 (two years ago) link
Yes. Interestingly, the first two albums, sound-wise, reminded me of nothing so much as the spectacular, icy psychedelia bedroom lo-fi world-building of Matt Johnson's debut Burning Blue Soul...
― imago, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 09:01 (two years ago) link
Yes, I like seeing TMF live but the idea that they're better live than on record is very counter-intuitive or ... unusual.
There are so many things about the diverse sounds of the records that they don't reproduce live. And I think I would add that the lack of percussion often makes the rhythms, live, sound poorer than they should.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 10:29 (two years ago) link
Imago:
good post that explains my great liking for Holiday - it isn't 'well recorded' or expensive-sounding (69LS feels MUCH more expensive) but it is a bedroom synth-layering masterpieceif anything, The Charm... has an even more astonishing sound-world, with a sort of bizarro alt-country thrown in amongst the twinkling, meshing anti-popboth albums (and the first two) are not 'well recorded' but the sonic detail is RICH and the textures are weird (and, I find, delightful)
Yes, this is all basically accurate. My point was: if you now play the records on a half-decent stereo, do they sound thin / strained / tinny?
I don't really know because I haven't played the earlier work for a long time (and you might want a better stereo than mine to test them).
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 10:30 (two years ago) link
Fwiw, "Heaven" was released as a single well before the album. Like, two years before? So maybe that accounts for the lower-fi sound, though imo I like that particular sound.― Josh in Chicago, Monday, February 21, 2022
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, February 21, 2022
That's a good fact, Josh -- I had absolutely no idea about it.
That seems to me possibly the weakest track on that LP.
I have an idea that the first single or two by TMF contain different versions of songs, eg: I am not sure that the 'long Vermont roads' on a very early 45 is the same as on TCOTHS. There is also the Merritt obscurities CD which I must listen to (think it contains thinks like 'plant white roses' that were not on most editions of the LPs).
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 10:35 (two years ago) link
Onto 'i'. Replacing almost all the synths with that prissy little string section is an unconscionable aesthetic choice, regardless of the songwriting (which is middling, if subdued)
― imago, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 13:54 (two years ago) link
congrats you've turned into Neil Hannon!!
― imago, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 13:55 (two years ago) link
Where before when he used a harpsichord it contributed imaginatively to an unusual and captivating sound-world, here on In An Operetta I want to take a fucking sledgehammer to the thing
― imago, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 14:03 (two years ago) link
I now understand a) why the fans felt let down by his post-69LS (which is a masterpiece next to this no matter how you otherwise regard it) material and b) why his new stuff passes completely under the radar. If it's even worse than this!
― imago, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 14:05 (two years ago) link
I'm sure I've mentioned it on this or some other MF thread, but I feel like he lost something when everything became so overtly high concept. Like he needed a frame for inspiration, or perhaps as a lazy crutch. Certainly Merritt's (earned) reputation as a contemptuous curmudgeon has done him no favors. That used to be part of his appeal live, but then it just got kind of old, and a little tedious. When they toured through here last I had a friend (who is peripherally in their circle) who texted that I really should check them out these days, because they'd turned a corner and were more "on" then they had been in a few years.
BTW, sonic comparison to Burning Blue Soul is kind of otm. Like rickety kitchen sink bedroom production.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 14:18 (two years ago) link
going through youtube, the live performances in the last few years do seem to have gone up a notch. they've brought back some of the synths & electric guitar & drum machines that they'd steadily avoided live for years due to merritt's hearing problems, so they must have found a way to make that work at last.
― ufo, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 14:22 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1iKcd7PGA
― ufo, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 14:27 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHldXhiowDY
― ufo, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 14:35 (two years ago) link
On the 50 Song Memoir tour he was in a kind of soundproof booth (fairly inconspicuous as part of the set), which allowed the band to approximate the album's instrumentation around him, and it was thrilling for me to finally see them perform live with synths, even if it was just songs from, you know, 50 Song Memoir. Merritt wasn't even part of the Future Bible Heroes tour a few years earlier.
― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Tuesday, 22 February 2022 15:16 (two years ago) link
Lmao, that's the up a notch stuff? Christ
Distortion is an effort to bring a different sort of sonic density back. It fails as it's already been done better, despite the odd nice moment
― imago, Wednesday, 23 February 2022 15:47 (two years ago) link
they've been entirely acoustic live for ages, bringing back the drum machine makes a big difference!
― ufo, Wednesday, 23 February 2022 16:04 (two years ago) link
When did they ever have a drum machine? All the times I saw them relatively early Claudia was playing drums. A la this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzmQg15Mf58
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 February 2022 16:36 (two years ago) link
Yeah Claudia was always the drummer! Is she not now?
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 23 February 2022 16:44 (two years ago) link
I think it was around "Get Lost" when they dropped the drums, she switched to piano and they went full chamber-pop.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 February 2022 16:48 (two years ago) link
I'm not going to try and psychoanalyse Realism, but the extent of its regression to campfire twee - the sheer truculence of its withdrawal from anything resembling depth or complexity - is almost charming
― imago, Wednesday, 23 February 2022 16:51 (two years ago) link
Neurodivergent songwriters are often expected to cleave to expected paths of progress, development, complication and so forth, and when they don't, people often turn on them, as I've kind of been doing, but I'm gonna hand it to Merritt here, he's doing whatever the fuck he wants and trashing the brand, well fine y'know, fine
― imago, Wednesday, 23 February 2022 16:53 (two years ago) link
well i mean from the studio versions, they very rarely had live drums on record in the first place in the 90s
― ufo, Wednesday, 23 February 2022 16:55 (two years ago) link
oh my god
― imago, Wednesday, 23 February 2022 17:08 (two years ago) link
I wasn't ready for how well my Realism comments paved the way for Love At The Bottom Of The Sea
he is unchained. unburdened. free
this is GLORIOUS omg
yep, on second listen I think I can firmly establish my great TMF trilogy: Charm, Holiday, Sea
I do not expect to be liked, nor understood, but there it is
― imago, Wednesday, 23 February 2022 17:57 (two years ago) link
Neurodivergent songwriters
????
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 24 February 2022 17:43 (two years ago) link
He has said that he may be on the autism spectrum.[29][30]
― imago, Thursday, 24 February 2022 17:46 (two years ago) link
have slightly calmed down re: LATBOTS - it isn't as good as the prime stuff, but I still find it a strikingly effective expression of creative freedom and full of little sonic delights
― imago, Thursday, 24 February 2022 17:47 (two years ago) link
Oh I didn't know that about Merritt
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 24 February 2022 17:50 (two years ago) link
good post that explains my great liking for Holiday - it isn't 'well recorded' or expensive-sounding (69LS feels MUCH more expensive) but it is a bedroom synth-layering masterpieceif anything, The Charm... has an even more astonishing sound-world, with a sort of bizarro alt-country thrown in amongst the twinkling, meshing anti-popOTM, those are def my two favorite MF records for similar reasons, followed closely by Distortion, which is I think a perfect execution of its concept (Stephin Merritt songs + the sonic palette of Psychocandy)
― J. Sam, Thursday, 24 February 2022 18:13 (two years ago) link
Lots of people say this - about themselves and others.
It may be wise to be cautious and circumspect in applying these terms to people when full diagnoses are not available.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 24 February 2022 19:22 (two years ago) link
idk, cinical diagnostic criteria for most spectrum disorders were not available until very recently, so lots of adults who showed obvious spectrum traits as children went undiagnosed. if there are adults who believe they fit the profile & it helps explain challenges they have faced or continue to face & self-identify as being on the spectrum, but have little incentive to seek a formal diagnosis, then there's no need to be overly circumspect in applying these terms imo.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Friday, 25 February 2022 00:05 (two years ago) link
Finding 50 Song Memoir to be grand fun
― imago, Wednesday, 9 March 2022 19:37 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I kind of love it now. Particularly the stretch from Hustle 76 to Dreaming in Tetris, which is almost 100% solid, but there some winners on either side of that too.
― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Wednesday, 9 March 2022 20:29 (two years ago) link
"'69: Judy Garland" is great; I play it for my Gay Life & Culture class when I cover Stonewall.
― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 9 March 2022 20:36 (two years ago) link
Had a blast seeing them in Amsterdam yesterday. Claudia isn't there for this tour and that did feel like a gap on stage but the instrumentation was excellent nevertheless. They played 30 songs in one and a half hour (obviously including several short songs from Quickies, but most of their songs aren't long anyway), I was pleasantly surprised with some excellent picks from Holiday: Desert Island, The Flowers She Sent & The Flowers She Said She Sent; Take Ecstasy With Me - so good!
― Valentijn, Monday, 12 September 2022 11:26 (one year ago) link
Someone posted their first show from 1990 recently (as well as another from 1990 on their channel)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn8OrCNapZQ
― city worker, Friday, 30 September 2022 12:34 (one year ago) link
Wow, thanks!! Other early live TMF videos from that same uploader:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvRRPNhkKo4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0hcyZ0ep0w
And there's even a little TMF after this Swirlies show (the link brings you right to the TMF stuff):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-N73NEMlAc
So in addition to Stephin, Claudia and Sam, I think that's Johny Blood on tuba (only in the "first show" video), Nell Beram on guitar, and Phylene Amuso on bass.
― ernestp, Saturday, 1 October 2022 03:25 (one year ago) link
Ah that last video (Swirlies) should've started at 38:58 - so just go to that time for the TMF content.
― ernestp, Saturday, 1 October 2022 03:27 (one year ago) link
!!!
EXCITING NEWS! In celebration of the 25th anniversary of 69 Love Songs, we'll be doing a limited run of shows next year in which we will perform all 69 songs in order over 2-night residencies in March-April 2024. Sign up for the presale now: https://t.co/IDdshJvOVQ pic.twitter.com/yFBO1n99v0— The Magnetic Fields (@TheMagFields) June 22, 2023
― ludicrously capacious bag (voodoo chili), Thursday, 22 June 2023 17:49 (nine months ago) link
Sadly no LD Beghtol, who died in 2020. Did they ever say what happened, Covid or something else?
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Friday, 23 June 2023 00:25 (nine months ago) link
Never saw cause of death spelled out
https://www.chickfactor.com/rip-ld-beghtol-splendid-butterfly/
― curmudgeon, Friday, 23 June 2023 15:39 (nine months ago) link