69 Love Songs [Box] by Magnetic Fields

Pros: A Great Box Set of 69 Fantastic Songs of Love by Stephin Merritt & Co.
Cons: None.

Whether in being in side projects like the Gothic Archies, the 6ths, and the Future Bible Heroes, Stephin Merritt truly has an uncanny knack for pop music with his unique ability to write catchy pop songs in a variety of styles. While he often does ...

Pros: commendable ambition; Merritt's songwriting; several pop gems just yearning to be unearthed
Cons: filler

Elegant and expansive, the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs is by equal turns funny and sad, sweet and cynical, retro and excitingly new. What in the hands of a lesser songwriter could have quickly degenerated into an uninspired gimmick - 69 songs (tee-he ...

Pros: a work of genius
Cons: er...

Ask twenty Magnetic Fields fans to name their favourite track on 69 Love Songs and you'd probably get twenty different answers. That's if you can find twenty fans in the first place. I haven't encountered any other Stephin Merritt obsessives, and I've ...

Pros: Impressive variety. Innovative lyrics. A pop album that dares to be different.
Cons: Tendency to overdo sentimental feeling

69 Love Songs: As the album title suggests the theme is "love". This word carries with it a vast array of connotations such as: affection, romance, sex, marriage, happiness, meaning, beauty etc. But also: despair, pain, grief, betrayal, death and ...

Pros: impressive variety of witty and wistful love songs
Cons: the occasional obnoxious track you want to skip

I'm not a long-time Magnetic Fields fan, as a lot of other people seem to be. In fact, I'd never even heard of them until a couple months ago, when I heard two of my friends cryptically discussing them, and was intrigued. After that, I kept hearing...

Pros: Catchy, poppy, songs for helpless romantics
Cons: Not for homophobes, metal heads, or anyone who hates synth-pop

There is hope for pop-rock in the new millenium, friends. His name is Stephin Merritt, and he fronts the Magnetic Fields. Their newest, and best, release on Merge Records is called '69 Love Songs'. The record is in fact 3 separate works, each with 23 of...

Pros: The best pop music you'll hear this year, and maybe all decade.
Cons: A more organic style than past albums, which may deter some.

Being a long time fan of the Magnetic Fields, I preordered 69 Love Songs last year. Absorbing a new work by a favorite artist, be it in music, writing, or art, is always a tricky task-- the artist may go into a new direction that you don't like, or the...

Pros: smart, sly
Cons: siren, snide

Cap't Fabulous is on the brink of being a failed superhero. Everyone is younger, smarter, better dressed, with a super that is fabulously extreme, fabulously fabulous in a way he knows his is not and will never be. His fabulous is ugly dingey from too...

Pros: Clever wordplay. An astonishing number of great songs.
Cons: Occasionally too clever. Those few songs that you just won't be able to stand

... some of it is just really dumb" The Book of Love The Magnetic Fields' "69 Love Songs" is a musical achievement on a level that few would ever attempt and even fewer could ever achieve. Over the course of its three, sprawling discs it examines the ...

Pros: Beautiful, Well crafted Indie Pop Songwriting.
Cons: Too show-tuney at times.

Stephen Merritt is one of those rare pop songwriting geniuses. If the music doesn't get you, the lyrics will carry you through. If the lyrics are boring (which they rarely ever are), the music makes it all right.
In the world of indie-pop,...

Pros: Put's the "Fun" back into fundamentalism (That's a joke--I don't really mean that)
Cons: Can't think of any

This boxed set is a must for collectors of Indie Rock. Mr. Meritt and company have developed the most intellectually stimulating conceptual album in years. "69 Love Songs" encompasses what we expect in independent labels; a music group that fears no...

Pros: Playful.
Cons: Painful.

Painful, playful songs. There's something about the lyrics...I can't put my finger on it...something to do with being old enough to know better, with selective denial and playful tendencies. Something to do with passionate restraint, with world-weary...

Pros: multi-talented artists, a subject that everyone can relate to--voila you've got a masterpiece!
Cons: none!

The 69 Love Songs have been in my player since I got the three cd box set two weeks ago. I can't get sick of it. The songs have a musical I've-heard-this-somewhere-before kind of quality that either has me stopping (to listen and think),...