| | Full Review | Ratings (62) |
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| 0.0 | former sputnik's home post-punk maester | March 7th 17 |
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/06/518379457/first-listen-the-magnetic-fields-50-song-memoir
Have you ever encountered an album that you found to be the closest to musical perfection? To me it very
well may be 50 Song Memoir by The Magnetic Fields. Everything, from the concept, songwriting, lyrics and
instrumentation is near perfect and ingeniusly crafted together. Each song is filled with emotions and attitude
the man behind the song, Stephin Merritt, had at the time he talks about in these songs. And the musical and
production component also perfectly carries the atmosphere and the life-situation he was a tthe time he describes
in these songs. When he decided to start a band, nobody from the collective couldn't afford any proper
instruments or recording, so the song also sounds very much amateurish (The BLizzard of 78). In the 80s he got a
synthesiser, so each track is filled with a lot of synthesiser sounds (like How to Play a Synthesiser). When he
describes theories of ethical science, the music is dreamy and almost cosmic (How I Failed Ethics). The
musicianship-lyrical relationship goes so perfectly hand-to-hand that the it allows the listener to imagine the
world Stephin was probably living in at the time. Some songs are quirky (London By Jetpack), some angry (Life
Ain't All Bad), some are moving (Foxx and I), some heartwarming (Me and Fred and Dave and Ted) and some may even
make you cry (A Cat Called Dionysus). Undoubtedly, the weirdness and silly nature of some tracks may scare some
people off (Happy Beeping); and I do believe that around the section in around late 80s and early 90s is a bit
lackluster, but only compared to the others; besides I also believe that the closer, Somebody's Fetish, does not
really work as a closer, but that is because this memoir is ongoing and does not need a grandiose finale. But
this album is still simply a rollercoaster of emotions and I am glad I've heard it.
P.S.: Is it just that the version I listened to had some defect or is Me and Fred and Dave and Ted on the album
really absolutely different song than the single?
1 Bumps | Bump |
| 3.5 great | Gene Gol-Jonsson CONTRIBUTOR | July 4th 23 |
One should not go into Magnetic Fields records expecting a cohesive front-to-back album experience. Their concepts usually run thin on that. But as a concept, go into it sporadically, like you would with a playlist. It's a whopping 50 tracks that only loosly tie into one another musically and end sort of mid-sentence. So keep that in mind and try not to overanalyse.
Bump |
| 3.5 great | TheManMachine | April 19th 17 |
Anyone who's been aware of dry-witted magnetic pop mastermind Stephin Merritt for more than a minute should know he's also a concept connoisseur, and in celebration of turning quinquagenarian and just himself in general duh, that convention continues. With each disc representing a decade's worth of life and lasting a substantial+reasonable ~30 minutes, we get a semi-crucial and humorous peek into all age chunks: skeptical yet captivated by cockroach reincarnation as punishment for bad behavior and misconstruing protests over paedocide pre-six, up past bedtime ordering disco comps off television and forming rickety "bands" during a brutal blizzard pre-high school, cultural all-nighters at Danceteria and failing/passing ethics in fabulous fashion circa academia, broke and crammed in an apartment with pals-n-pets-n-bugs in his twenties, staying faithful to his bar and an ex in his thirties, hatin' on surfin' and being misquoted in his forties, wishing he had as many solid memories as he does songs when approaching the big 5-0. Given the towering track tally and perhaps those fadin' memories, there's also of course the etceteras and goofs with varying degrees of comparable worth and autobio-centricity -- but 1999's "Sweet Lovin' Man" turning cold-blooded for 2004 and the optimistic na-na-na's for a shall-not-be-named dead creep are highlights fo sho, while the detailed 1981 synthesizer demonstration met with the careless clatter of harebrained self-deprecation ten years later kinda sums up their shtick. As does the all-around lyrical acumen.
Bump |
| 2.0 poor | doofy | January 10th 24 |
| 3.0 good | Yotimi | August 28th 22 |
| 4.0 excellent | cb123 | January 22nd 21 |
| 3.5 great | Prole | February 10th 20 |
| 4.0 excellent | xxm | January 20th 19 |
| 3.0 good | A.R.O. STAFF | January 14th 19 |
| 3.5 great | doqtor | November 12th 17 |
| 3.5 great | Toms | November 6th 17 |
| 4.0 excellent | Tim00w | October 16th 17 |
| 4.0 excellent | Brandon | September 9th 17 |
| 4.0 excellent | gilly | September 6th 17 |
| 3.0 good | Ulshad | April 20th 17 |
| 5.0 classic | elvis7 | March 26th 17 |
| 4.0 excellent | mallen- | March 21st 17 |
| 4.0 excellent | PaabL | March 17th 17 |
| 4.0 excellent | Yay | March 15th 17 |
| 4.5 superb | Veldin | March 10th 17 |
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