"I'm Sorry That I Love You" is obviously the best song on the three albums. The rest of the songs range from pretty darn good to kind of embarassing.

WTF?

Not in a bad way.

quote:

Originally posted by Maximum Jack:
Just last week I finally got around to uploading all my old Magnetic Fields albums onto my iTunes library. I hadn't listened to those early records in forever. While I agree that "100,000 Fireflies" is sublime, those two early records do not hold up for me. It's like some other band-- and not just because of Susan Anway's vocals. Merritt really hit his stride (and started singing!) with Holiday and peaked with 69 Love Songs.

I agree with the part about the early albums. I think they've got great moments, but they're hit-or-miss. Starting with Holiday the Magnetic Fields stuff gets really good.

What I can never understand though, is the popularity of the song "100,000 Fireflies." It's one of my least favorite songs of his. I really don't like it, yet I've never heard anyone else express anything but unalloyed praise for it.

quote:

Originally posted by Chamberk:
"I'm Sorry That I Love You" is obviously the best song on the three albums. The rest of the songs range from pretty darn good to kind of embarassing.

I felt like this for a long time, and while there are still 4-5 songs I don't like, I've come to love almost the whole thing. The more I listen to Merritt's songs, the more they appeal to me, which isn't the case with most of the stuff I listen to.

I listened to 69 Love Songs all the way through for the first time not too long ago, maybe two weeks ago. I was kind of looking for one of those big, meaningful albums because...well, just because, and a friend told me if I liked Jens Lekman (who I was playing at the time) that I'd probably like The Magnetic Fields. For being almost three hours long, it was a really easy, pleasant listen. I don't recall distinctly disliking any of the songs, maybe a lot of them blurred together but they were all nice listening as they played. I remember "Sweet-Lovin' Man" being the best for me, at least the most immediate that first time through, and a few others stuck out at me at the time but I've kind of forgotten them a little. I think I have an affinity for the sillier songs like "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits"

One really apt thing in the P4k review, is that it ends up being exactly the sum of its parts, no more no less. I didn't come off feeling like I'd just listened to a big epic triple album, I came off feeling like I had just listened to a lot of pretty good songs all in a row. So I guess magnitude alone doesn't account for "GREATNESS." Or, that art really has a lot of gestalt principles, and there's just that sense of music magic you can never put your finger on.