The Magnetic Fields: Classic or Dud?

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.

All day snow covered us
Night-time: it was always night
The people on the street were made of meat
Black girl, trucks ran us down
Blue boy...
The people on the sidewalk were traced in chalk
Whale embryos filled your enormous room
Screech-owl kachinas built your spiritual room
We were kings, kings!
We were kings, kings!

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.

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

"The Magnetic Fields lose something on record but as a live band they kill" is inner-circle Slatepitch, kudos

"Holiday", singular. Got it. Thanks for correcting.

...and that might be kind of significant, actually: a reference to Charles Ives?

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?

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...

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.

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 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)

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).

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

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).

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)

congrats you've turned into Neil Hannon!!

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

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!

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.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1iKcd7PGA

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

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.

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

they've been entirely acoustic live for ages, bringing back the drum machine makes a big difference!

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

Yeah Claudia was always the drummer! Is she not now?

I think it was around "Get Lost" when they dropped the drums, she switched to piano and they went full chamber-pop.

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

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

well i mean from the studio versions, they very rarely had live drums on record in the first place in the 90s

oh my god

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

Neurodivergent songwriters

????

He has said that he may be on the autism spectrum.[29][30]

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

Oh I didn't know that about Merritt

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
OTM, 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)

He has said that he may be on the autism spectrum.[29][30]

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.

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.

Finding 50 Song Memoir to be grand fun

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.

"'69: Judy Garland" is great; I play it for my Gay Life & Culture class when I cover Stonewall.

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!

Someone posted their first show from 1990 recently (as well as another from 1990 on their channel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn8OrCNapZQ

Wow, thanks!! Other early live TMF videos from that same uploader:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvRRPNhkKo4
https://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.

Ah that last video (Swirlies) should've started at 38:58 - so just go to that time for the TMF content.

!!!

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

Sadly no LD Beghtol, who died in 2020. Did they ever say what happened, Covid or something else?

Never saw cause of death spelled out

https://www.chickfactor.com/rip-ld-beghtol-splendid-butterfly/