The Magnetic Fields: Classic or Dud?

I think I'm going to delve back properly into this LP, maybe playing it all at random for days. I'll try to form a better view on the songs that CAPTCHAS mentions, which I don't now remember at all.

Cool! Yeah, I think driving around listening to it on random like I used to do with 69LS helped me appreciate it more.

I always thought Sweet-Lovin' Man was a Donnette-Thayer-sings-Scott-Miller pastiche.

That hadn't occurred to me but now that you mention it I can definitely hear a connection between it and "Wyoming."

I have always been able to appreciate 69LS consecutively, on CD. I don't even really associate it with random play.

Whereas - 50SM seems basically lower quality or less enjoyable overall, and maybe would benefit from elements of random surprise.

Today I just played the first few songs. I was surprised how good the opener 'wonder where I'm from' is. 'Killing children' as noted, has something, and btw the intro strikes me as a joke on 'Seven Nation Army'. The highlight I think must be 'Judy Garland' - the closest thing to a major song here? With the great line 'Let's try: None of the above'.

Then again ...

"'67 Come Back as a Cockroach", "'68 A Cat Called Dionysus" and worst of all, "'72 Eye Contact" - it's hard to justify even playing these tracks.

Reports that Susan Amway has passed away - heartbreaking.

Shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of Susan Anway, vocalist with the Magnetic Fields, among others. My heart always breaks hearing this song; now for new reasons.https://t.co/YHIWPd2Xh8

— Daniel Handler (@DanielHandler) September 8, 2021

Oh man, the version of “Take Ecstasy with Me” with her on vocals blew me away as a teenager, might still be my favorite track they ever did. That’s so sad.

This is horrible. 100,000 Fireflies is my favorite song.

Oh no...
A quick web search turns this up: https://www.echovita.com/us/obituaries/fl/north-fort-myers/mary-susan-anway-13296211
She was 70. I remember some interview with Stephin where he did mention that Susan was a bit older than the rest of them (I didn't realize it was that much.)
If there was ever a life-changing song for me, "100,000 Fireflies" was it, in 1993 via the "...One Last Kiss" compilation.
Years later I was at a Pauline Oliveros workshop, and she told everyone there to think of your very favorite song that you know by heart and everyone would each sing their own favorite simultaneously, one syllable at a time, using one long breath for each syllable; at that moment, I decided that "Smoke Signals" was my favorite song. Now, "Dancing in My Eyes" gets me every time, especially Susan's delivery of the rising melody of the line "We will dance in the autumn with the leaves in our hair."
I remember another interview with Stephin where he said he liked the way that Susan could sound happy, sad, or blank. Then Stephin mentioned that he could only sound sad. Then he mentioned that he wanted to be able to sound blank.
Ok, going to listen to those first two albums now...

She also sang in the group V; (that's a "V" followed by a semicolon).
"1926" is absolutely stunning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPE2CLBvjiI
"Your god hates me / He can't feel my flesh / He leaves me panting like a dog at the edge of your bed"

Oh wow. Some days Distant Plastic Trees is my favourite thing ever but I never really learned anything about the vocalist before today. So sad. It's obviously time to play my old twofer CD. Much of it makes me misty-eyed at the best of times...

Sad, second major Magnetic Fields contributor in two years ... RIP.

The first two LPs, with her, are indeed special and magnificent - among the greatest pop achievements of their era, or, I'm inclined to say, any era.

She did something, on those records, that no-one else has ever done, and perhaps no-one else ever could do.

Yup, there really is something about them that feels magical, and a lot of it is down to her vocals.

She also sang in the group V; (that's a "V" followed by a semicolon).
"1926" is absolutely stunning:

OK this is blowing my mind. I'm well acquainted with Thalia Zedek's version of "1926," but had no idea it was a cover, let alone a cover of song originally sung by Susan Anway. Thanks for sharing this!

If anyone hasn't heard the original "Crowd of Drifters" with Anway on vocals, which was, I believe, the first officially released Magnetic Fields song (on a compilation from 1990 that was apparently reissued last year: https://emergencyhearts.bandcamp.com/album/doctor-deaths-vol-iv-the-marvels-of-insect-life), it is a thing of beauty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLu5Taq12qM

on a compilation from 1990 that was apparently reissued last year: https://emergencyhearts.bandcamp.com/album/doctor-deaths-vol-iv-the-marvels-of-insect-life),

I really love this particular segment of 90s indie linguistic style where on a comp like this it's impossible to tell which is the band name and which is the song title unless you're already familiar with the band

Thanks for the 1926 link, Ernest.

I know quite a lot of TMF obscurities - but I still don't think I had heard Anway sing 'crowd of drifters'.

There's something about the very early years of this band that's to me deeply intriguing - and deeply rooted in a US indie scene that they would later, perhaps, try to disavow or at least leave behind.

There's something about the very early years of this band that's to me deeply intriguing - and deeply rooted in a US indie scene that they would later, perhaps, try to disavow or at least leave behind.

― the pinefox, Friday, September 10, 2021 9:57 AM

Quite regional scenes as well - I'd also not heard V; before, or taken followed other Boston indie breadrcrumbs to the original "Babies Falling":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-e4fEfWi7A

Still embarrassed at butchering Susan's surname above. Does anyone know why her version of "Plant White Roses" was left off all the Distant Plastic Trees reissues over the years?

Fondly remember the time she replied to a RYM thread that was asking for any information about where she had disappeared after 1992
Apparently she had become a blacksmith
I've never been able to say which of the first two albums I prefer but they're also my favorites

An original 'Babies Falling'! Incredible!

Yes, this kind of thing shows so much about where the extraordinary Merritt vision came from; how it was actually more rooted than it seems.

In theory perhaps 50 SONG MEMOIR is about that, but its songs are too often not interesting enough to convey it.

tour dates announced

are they any good live? now that i'm in a city where bands i'm interested in regularly tour

Funnily enough, given we're all busy celebrating how the Big Thief album is exactly this - The Charm Of The Highway Strip is an object lesson in how to take simple chords and alchemise astonishing songs out of them through imaginative textures, arrangements and melodic lines. So great. Can't believe I'm only discovering it now

And his limitations as a player if anything serve a purpose - there's a moment 2:11 into I Have The Moon where he hits the major rather than the expected minor for a fraction of a second and it's amazing, like a literal parapraxis in the song

wtf Holiday is amazing too?

holiday is my favourite

I like how the "Babies Falling" cover is *extremely* faithful to the original (upthread) in terms of the vocal melody while duplicating pretty much nothing from the Wild Stares' broader arrangement.

retroactively adding 'in my secret place' to my sub-2-min-songs ballot

I've just checked Imago's reference.

I have to admit, there is something here - it sounds like an error. Unsure if it's really an error or somehow part of the design.

Is this a keyboard part? If so then it is probably Merritt, I guess.

Unsure whether this music is comparable to the band BIG THIEF that people are talking about.

there's one big thief track ("wake me up to drive") that sounds a bit like the magnetic fields but that's it

'how to take simple chords and alchemise astonishing songs out of them through imaginative textures, arrangements and melodic lines' was the operative part of the comparison

ANYWAY. the big one folks

having never given them a solitary shot for 35 years, I'm approaching this discography chronologically and yet, really, all at once, which lends (or rather, removes) a certain measure of perspective

here are my findings so far - from someone who's not versed in TMF as a phenomenon or a narrative:

- the first two albums are really good
- the third and fourth albums are EXCELLENT - The Charm especially - for reasons aforementioned
- here's where it gets interesting. Get Lost is fine, good even, but something has gone slightly awry - the songs are longer, less concise, more content to wallow, more maudlin. the arrangements are less wild. it feels like some measure of inspiration and creative fury has gone. many of the songs are still lovely but there really is an element of something missing, wheels spinning
- I think Merritt KNEW this, because 69LS, which I am 18/69 through at time of writing, feels like a conscious effort to crowbar inspiration back into the project through deliberate eclecticism and scope. however, what I'm finding is that this doesn't make the individual songs particularly great or memorable. individually they're MUCH simpler and less musically arresting than the individual tracks of the first 4 albums. if this had been released as 3 albums they'd all be considered minor TMF imo. which might be harsh as I haven't heard the last two of the three albums (okay, discs) yet, but it sure feels like it's going to be more of the same hollowish pseudo-eclecticism

obviously, it was a comeback after 4 years and it was 69 goddamned tracks long, so I understand the hype, but listening to all these albums has a) made me a TMF fan (at least until he lost his zest and flair for wonky, gauzy anti-arrangements) and b) taught me if I didn't know already to never remotely trust accepted narratives about Great American Indie Bands

69 love songs is indeed quantity over quality, there's a fair amount of top tier material on it but also a ton of goofy filler to the point where i never really want to come back to even a single disc of it

yeah something like 'Grand Canyon' recaptures a lot of the magic, but there aren't enough songs that do

That impression of Get Lost definitely matches what I felt about it at the time. It'd be interesting to situate the first Sixths album within the trajectory you describe. It shares some things (variety of styles, multiple voices, concept) with 69LS but has more in common with the earlier albums' songs/sounds, and is at least as good

whoa, definite post-a-controversial opinion time up in here (re: 69LS)

challop morelike

(yeah it's totally fine, of course, I'm just surprised)

I think most people who came to TMF in the 90s prefer the Distant Plastic Trees -- Get Lost run to 69LS, I sure do, not that 69 isn't a great record -- I go back to "100,000 Fireflies" and "Take Ecstasy with Me" and "Plant White Roses" and "Born on a Train" and "You Love To Fail" (and for that matter "Dream Hat") and etc. way more than anything from the later stuff.

same tbh. not that there aren't good things after 69LS (e.g. I like Distortion quite a bit) but it does seem like a dividing line for me where I love everything before it and that's where I find I'm cherry picking songs and not rating the albums as a whole that much.

Interesting - pretty sure most the Mag Fields fans I have known regard 69LS and its material as the group's zenith (to the point that bootlegs of the related live shows are traded, etc.)

I love Get Lost but I see the point about the shift. The first two albums in particular are such a self-contained, gauzy bubble, there's no way something like "Living In an Abandoned Firehouse with You" would fit on the later albums. As time goes on his writing sharpens, for ex "The Desperate Things You Made Me Do" is a stunning, brutal song, but you lose the entrancing nature of things like "Lovers From the Moon."

I think I'd first heard a few songs from 69LS that I liked and then became obsessed with the Susan Amway version of "Take Ecstasy With Me," I never really listen to 69LS as an album, or even a third of an album.

Yeah, his lyrics seem to be much showier and more self-consciously literary on 69LS, often at the music's expense

I think most people who came to TMF in the 90s prefer the Distant Plastic Trees -- Get Lost run to 69LS, I sure do, not that 69 isn't a great record -- I go back to "100,000 Fireflies" and "Take Ecstasy with Me" and "Plant White Roses" and "Born on a Train" and "You Love To Fail" (and for that matter "Dream Hat") and etc. way more than anything from the later stuff.

This is me. "69 Love Songs" was honestly where I more or less got off the boat. And the Sixths might be the one I listen to the most.

Interesting - pretty sure most the Mag Fields fans I have known regard 69LS and its material as the group's zenith (to the point that bootlegs of the related live shows are traded, etc.)

― punching the clock on a tambo (morrisp), Sunday, 20 February 2022 17:52 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this feels to me to be a product of that album's relatively colossal profile - hype generating hype - and I wouldn't be surprised if for a lot of them it was their introduction to the band and therefore set an expectation for what they are and what they do best

in the same way that approaching them chronologically (but also all at once) might lead one to conclude that the best stuff happens earlier

will def detour to Sixths after this

Nah, they were into them already (tho 69LS may be said to have taken their fandom to new heights - being the achievement that it is). It's cool, everyone's different.

Was it mentioned on that 'every artist has a New Jersey' thread I wonder lol

and to be absolutely clear my primary agenda is far less to attempt a downward reevaluation of 69LS than it is to obtain the inverse for Charm and Holiday, which I honestly wouldn't have even heard of but for a recent IRL suggestion that I try their early discography

Yeah, I'm curious what you'll make of that first 6ths album (Wasps' Nests), which came out between Holiday and Get Lost. As was mentioned upthread, it might have more in common with what came after it than what came before, but I also think it's one of Merritt's best sounding albums, second only to Charm.

And if you haven't listened to the House of Tomorrow EP yet, I always think of that as being of a piece with Holiday.

Ty!

Am finding 69LS disc 2 to be an improvement over disc 1, funnily enough

Wait you didn’t even listen to the whole thing yet(?)

It's really long okay

Combining it with reading Hollinghurst works pretty well tbh, maybe I'm liking it a bit more as a soundtrack to fiction