Posts Tagged: the magnetic fields

music — No Comments
21
Jun 10

Sounds like a mountain range in love

It’s no secret that I love The Magnetic Fields. What is a secret, though, or at least a less-known fact, is that my romantic Weltanschauung is contained in their song “100,000 Fireflies.”

Here are the MFs performing it live in Hamburg, Germany, a couple of months ago in March-- I love the live vocal arrangement, with Shirley and lovely Claudia joining in on the chorus. And Sam Davol’s hair is especially animate in this video.

In times of great heart-sickness, I have often listened to this song literally hundreds of times in a row. Three parts of it are especially comforting to me, for giving articulation to my misery. First, the second verse: Continue reading →

music — 2 Comments
16
Jun 10

Don’t be sad when the sun goes down / I’ll never fall in love again

Lady Gaga & Stephin Merritt

Lady Gaga & a wary Stephin Merritt

Lady Gaga has a proposition for you: want to be her “Summerboy”? More specifically, in her track of the same name she sings,

Crazy, get your ass in my bed
Baby, you’ll just be my summer boyfriend

But beware the limitations of this arrangement, as outlined in the chorus:

Don’t be sad when the sun goes down
You’ll wake up and I’m not around
I’ve got to go oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
We’ll still have the summer after all

Doesn’t sound all that bad, right? You get to be Gaga’s summer fling, and who wouldn’t want that? Continue reading →

live / music / what are these young homosexuals doing — 6 Comments
8
Mar 10

Shut up and put your $$ where your mouth is

I was lucky, lucky, lucky enough to see The Magnetic Fields on Friday night in Bloomington, at the Buskirk Chumley theater. The Magnetic Fields are one of my favorite bands, but saying “favorite bands” doesn’t even begin to describe it. I don’t think I would understand myself emotionally in relation to other people without 69 Love Songs. That’s right, an album single-handedly saved me from the autism spectrum.

I have spent so many hours of my life listening to their albums, and the voices especially of Stephin Merritt, Claudia Gonson, and Shirley Simms are permanently ingrained into the folds of my brain. Just seeing Shirley open her mouth and having that voice come out of it was a sort of magical-visceral experience that made me feel giddy and disoriented. And it was weird to look up and see John Woo and Sam Davol sitting in front of me, playing their stringed instruments, wearing the same facial expressions that I use to watch NBC on Thursday nights. Continue reading →

music / reviews — 1 Comment
26
Jan 10

People of Earth, when you dance

Realism by The Magnetic FieldsI got the new Magnetic Fields album, Realism, last night (thanks, Nonesuch!). I listened to it once while falling asleep, and I’m on my second listen through today. At 33:17 in length, it’s a zippy little burst of an album, with crystal-clear production. First impressions of 5/13 of the tracks:

  • “We Are Having a Hootenanny Now” is the sort of form study, nearly drained of content, at which Stephin Merritt excels. I love the multi-part vocals, with Merritt’s canyon-low creak holding down the bottom, and Claudia Gonson’s light-as-a-feather voice floating over the top.
  • “The Dolls’ Tea Party” features what sounds like a great toy piano and banjo combo, and I love the refrain.
  • “Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree” is unparalleled in its 60s sound, coming across almost like an alternate universe early Cat Stevens.  And has this great couplet: “Stop mumbling and cheer up/Put down the book, pick beer up.”
  • Is “Always Already Gone” a nod to Derrida? I think Stephin Merritt is perhaps the last great Post- structuralist, so I wouldn’t be surprised. What a beautiful idea, applying it to a ballad.
  • And of course, of course, I completely love “The Dada Polka.” Listening to this last night, in that liminal place between waking and sleep, I was giddy and grinning during it. I love the weird underlying sound effects during the pauses, like the void is about to sweep in and take away the musicians, and the return of layered group vocals like in “We Are Having a Hootenanny.”

I love The Magnetic Fields so much that it’s almost a palpable relief to have more music by them released into the world. And this album is a great little taste of more of that TMF genius. I’m going to relisten to Distortion, the companion album, over the next few days, and hopefully attempt a side-by-side review later this week.