September 9th, 2009
69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields is one of my favourite albums in the world…ever and it’s 10 years old this week. In theory it’s like one of those awful compilation CDs that are advertised late at night. “Just send £29.99 now and we’ll send you 69 of the greatest love songs. These are love songs for every occasion” In reality however, Stephen Merritt is a great and wonderful songwriter and the box set is, for the most part, utterly genius.
To celebrate we’d like to offer up this
LoveLikeFire cover of “Abigail, Belle of Kilronan” from Disc 2 of the box set. Download it from here and let us know what you think.
Stereogum ran a great article on the album today so I’ll leave you with this section which is pretty much spot on:
You get similes, bad metaphors. Epitaphs. A Slogan: “Love, music, wine, and revolution.” Dancing. Wit. Happy and unhappy endings from the Lower East Side to Washington, D.C. and North Carolina to Kilronan and back. Longing, lust. Cheerleaders. It subverts and expands upon the tradition of love songs. It telescopes gay culture. It can bring up the tears in the tiniest fragments. It inverts and welcomes cliches. The speakers are romantic, lonesome, gloating, giddy, cheeky, questioning, protective, taunting, heartbroken, content, peevish, at home. Relationships can be illicit, married, meaningless, one-night, life-long. Or whatever. If you go through the tracklist, there are so many songs that felt like instant classics the first time through — “Papa Was A Rodeo,” “Lets Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits,” the Beghtol intoned “All My Little Words,” “Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing,” “No One Will Ever Love You,” “Underwear,” “When My Boy Walks Down The Street,” “The One You Really Love,” “If You Don’t Cry,” etc., etc. — and remain just as affecting. How can you not want to dance to “Long-Forgotten Fairytale”? Or make it through “Asleep And Dreaming” without thinking about who you love (or loved) most? Or not wish Merritt would challenge Morrissey to a game of romantic put downs? It’s amazing how little filler there is across almost three hours. You’ve heard gems pop up on television shows, various commercials, and films, but more important than placement: Who’s completed a pop album this complex since?
