What does it sound like?:
1. In a surge of overexcited posting I agreed to review this – The Magnetic Fields’ new album 50 Song Memoir. I think it demands a 50 something to review.
2. 5 CD’s – takes a while to listen 6 times and I’m not quite there yet.
3. And a nice little booklet with an interview with Daniel Handler who is a part time Magnetic Fields member aka Limony Snicket.
4. Not all the songs on 69 were to everyone’s taste but many were flawed little jewels of unrequited lust and bitter remorse.
5. Personally I preferred quirkier ones like The Night You Can’t Remember to more popular ones like Papa Was A Rodeo.
6. This one will be the same. Chacun a son gout. (See other post)
7. Opening bars of first song might almost be about to launch into theme from Steptoe & Son but the ukelele is soon joined by that familiar deep and wistful voice.
8. So we get what it says on the box – a song for every year of Stephin’s life. All the fads, fashions , crazes and heartbreak
9. With the low tech soundtrack we expect.
10. Not sure it quite achieves the sustained heights of 69 Love Songs yet but already worthy of looking into its watery eyes.
11. And may well further improve with age.
12. Love and music, yeah.
What does it all *mean*?
13. Lucky numbers – that’s life….
Goes well with…
Life, love and music.
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
The Magnetic Fields, John Foxx, Jetpacks, 50’s
http://www.nonesuch.com/media/video/magnetic-fields-02-be-true-your-bar
*applauds*
I knew straight away I was going to fall in love with 69 Love Songs. It was huge with a dizzying number of different styles and emotions, seemingly recorded in a bedroom. Clearly, it was going to take some digesting but the more time I spent with it, the more I appreciated that every single track is a miniature beauty, full of wit, charm and raw humanity. That was just three CDs. Now, I’ve got five to look forward to.
@Tiggerlion UK tour dates this summer
http://www.houseoftomorrow.com/calendar/
going 1 night – maybe 2…..stuff it I have a birthday this year so will do both 🙂
That’s quite a leisurely tour and with a programme A and a programme B, you simply have to go two nights if you go at all.
unboyfriendable
Nice review.
I consider 69 Love Songs to be just about the peak of human endeavour to date.
50 Song Memoir has a lot to live up to, then. His output in recent years has been patchy to be generous but on first few listens there is a hell of a lot of good stuff on the new one.
so right
Quite. Anticipating a k-werk style rush I booked mine straight away – front row both nights. Makes me a fanboy?(“obsessive or over excited”). Whatever.
I’ve finally listened to the whole thing six times. I can officially declare it a work of genius. Some may mourn the absence of a female voice but this is Merritt’s life story and his voice should tell his tale. In any case, he changes with each song, not just the instruments or the style but his vocal tone, to match the stage of his life he is singing about. I especially like the deranged adolescent. It helps enormously that Merritt is naturally charming and erudite, with a dark sense of humour and a keen eye for the profound in the mundane. I also love the fact that it is divided into five bit-sized chunks. Each CD rewards multiple listens in its own right. This is an album that grows and grows, whose subtleties and details reveal themselves slowly. It took me years to fully appreciate 69 Love Songs. I’m looking forward to spending much more time in the glorious company of 50 Song Memoir for many more years to come.
When “50 Song Memoir” was released, we had two parallel threads about it, this being one. On the other thread, I wrote that, after two listens, I was a little disappointed in the album.
I’ve now listened to the 5CD set five times all the way through, and my opinion of it has changed a great deal. The songs have just grown and grown, as Stephin Merritt’s work so often does. His melodies are so beguiling, his lyrics so arch, knowing, plain-spoken and funny. Inevitably, comparisons will be drawn with “69 Love Songs”, and even though I don’t think 50 Song Memoir quite matches the 1999 masterpiece, it’s still a work of great substance that will repay repeat listens. It seems that the more ambitious a project is, the harder Merritt works and the more fully realised the results are. These fifty chronological vignettes from his life don’t make up a story, but they do make for an intriguing composite picture. Hats off to Stephin Merritt. He really has done it again.