69 love songs
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| Studio album by The Magnetic Fields | ||||
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Publication |
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admission |
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| Label (s) | Merge Records | |||
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Title (number) |
69 |
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running time |
172: 04 |
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| occupation |
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Stephin Merritt |
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Studio (s) |
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69 Love Songs is the sixth studio album by the American band The Magnetic Fields and was released in September 1999 on the independent label Merge Records . The three-part concept album includes 69 eponymous love songs and combines numerous musical influences and styles.
background
69 Love Songs is The Magnetic Fields' first concept album and was originally supposed to contain over 100 love songs, but songwriter Merritt left it at 69 after objections from the record company, although the sexual connotation of the number 69 is deliberately chosen. The order of the songs is based on the alphabet , starting with A (“Absolutely Cuckoo”) and ending with XY (“Xylophone Track”) and Z (“Zebra”).
On the album, the multi-instrumentalist Merritt plays a range of different musical instruments: ukulele , baritone ukulele , electric guitar , acoustic guitar , lap steel guitar , twelve-string guitar , bass , mandolin , autoharp , marxophone , ukelin , tremoloa , violin uke , sitar , Zither , violin , singing saw , analog synthesizer (including Roland TB-303 ), synclavier , piano , harmonium , Wurlitzer , electronic organ , keyboard , drum computer , vocoder , omnichord , recorder , ocarina , tin whistle , wind converter , melodica , jug , marimbula , Xylophone , kalimba , drums , cymbals , rainmaker , glockenspiel , maracas , conga , bongos , triangle , bell , tambourine , washboard , steel pan , shaker , cymbal , whistle , bell stick , body percussion , thunder plate , cabasa , cowbell and gong . In addition to band members Sam Davoll, Claudia Gonson and John Woo, Merritt also worked with some studio musicians .
The homosexual singer-songwriter Merritt addresses love in the 69 love songs from both a homosexual and a heterosexual perspective, and from changing narrative perspectives, for example from the perspective of a sailor and a truck driver. In the individual songs he processes inspirations from different musical directions, including jazz ("Love is Like Jazz"), world music ("World Love"), folk ("Wi 'Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget"), ballad (" The Book of Love ”), gospel (“ Kiss Me Like You Mean It ”) as well as punk (“ Punk Love ”) and minimal music (“ Experimental Music Love ”).
The almost three-hour concept album was initially released on three CDs, and in 2010 Merge Records released 69 Love Songs for the first time on six 10 ″ long-playing records.
Some songs were covered by other musicians. From The Book of Love took Peter Gabriel in 2004 an orchestral cover version for the soundtrack of the film Shall We Dance? on. His version was later released on the album Scratch My Back (2010). Bright Eyes and The Magic Numbers covered the song Papa Was a Rodeo , Tracey Thorn Yeah! Oh yeah .
Track list
All songs are written by Stephin Merritt.
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Volume 1
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Volume 2
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Volume 3
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reception
| source | rating |
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| Allmusic |
 
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| Rolling Stone |
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| The Guardian |
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| Pitchfork |
 
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| Uncut |
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| New Musical Express |
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| Spin |
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| Music Express |
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69 Love Songs received very positive reviews and is considered the band's magnum opus . The musical and lyrical diversity received special praise. The music magazine Rolling Stone ranks the album at number 465 of the 500 best albums of all time and at number 97 of the 100 best albums of the 1990s. In the list of 500 best albums of all time of the New Musical Express has 69 Love Songs place 210. Pitchfork chose it to number 37 of the 100 best albums of the decade. The album reached number 16 in Spin's selection of the 300 best albums from 1985 to 2014 .
“Merritt impressively succeeds in the ambitious project of using the paradigm of the pop song - the love song - to unroll all styles and forms of expression in pop music, as well as adding a few new ones. […] The magnum opus contains a. a. a Sonny and Cher-style duet ("Yeah! Oh Yeah!"), a country gospel piece in which religious love is confused with worldly love ("Kiss Me Like You Mean It"); the amusing story of the failed rendezvous of a drunken sailor ("The Night You Can't Remember"); a children's song about ramming ("Let's Pretend We Are Bunny Rabbits"); a praise for the erotic effect of lingerie ("underwear"); an ode to the love of animals ("Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long"); but also stocktaking of romantic desire ("Come Back From San Francisco") and merciless analyzes of unfulfilled hopes ("No One Will Ever Love You"). [...] No other work in pop history is more ideally suited to being lost in it for a whole evening, a whole day, a whole week or even longer. It is an album for everyone who has ever dreamed of love, fell in love or was abandoned - an essential album for everyone. "
“ 69 Love Songs was originally conceived as a song revue, and so it draws on a lush dramatis personae and strategically uses characters and perspectives. The album uses this to broaden its perspective, to depict the cultural phenomenon “love song” more comprehensively. […] In the 69 Love Songs there are 69 independent stories. 69 Love Songs is a heterogeneous work of art, on the back of the booklet they are listed alphabetically instead of in their actual order. This emphasizes: These are all potential singles, you can just as easily hear them in shuffle mode. But if you take the album as a complete work, then it's about pop culture , its historical dimension, its social role and all the functions that it takes on: whether in the solitude in which it offers a helping hand, if only because because it is integrated into a business model ("When things go wrong I sing along. It is the nature of the business"), or whether in the "Promises of Eternity" of its protagonists, which Merritt romanticizes and dismantles without creating a contradiction would. They are pop songs that have become cultural criticism , the cliché and their dialectical fixed point, their Achilles heel and a secret weapon rolled into one. "
69 Love Songs was included in the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Schütte, Uwe: Basis-Diskothek Rock and Pop, Philipp Reclam jun. Stuttgart 2004, pp. 111-112.
- ↑ a b Review by Nick Mirov on pitchfork.com (accessed February 2, 2018)
- ↑ a b 500 Greatest Albums of All Time on rollingstone.com, accessed February 2, 2018
- ↑ Cover versions on whosampled.com (accessed February 2, 2018)
- ↑ Review by Jason Ankeny on allmusic.com (accessed February 2, 2018)
- ↑ Review by Erik Himmelsbach ( Memento from June 29, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) on rollingstone.com (2001, archived) (accessed February 2, 2018)
- ↑ Review by Betty Clarke on theguardian.com (accessed February 2, 2018)
- ↑ Review by Stephen Troussé on uncut.co.uk (accessed February 2, 2018)
- ↑ Review by Roger Morton on nme.com (accessed October 25, 2019)
- ^ Review by Douglas Wolk, in: Spin, 10/1999, p. 154
- ↑ Review by Frank Sawatzki on musikexpress.de (accessed on February 2, 2018)
- ↑ 100 Best Albums of the '90s on rollingstone.com (accessed February 2, 2018)
- ↑ The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time on nme.com (accessed October 25, 2019)
- ↑ Top 100 Albums of the 1990s on pitchfork.com (accessed February 2, 2018)
- ↑ The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985-2014) on spin.com (accessed October 25, 2019)
- ↑ Jäger, Jan-Niklas, in: Testcard Contributions to Pop History # 25 Criticism, Ventil Verlag UG Mainz 2017, pp. 122–127.