i hate the sound of guitars

artist of the week: The Magnetic Fields

Usually I’d expect that after seeing an artist two nights running I wouldn’t want to spend the next few days listening to the artist’s catalogue, but when the artist is The Magnetic Fields the usual rules do not apply. The wide-ranging setlists inspired me to revisit records I didn’t know so well, like Get Lost, which I think I bought only after immersing myself in 69 Love Songs.

As with the tour for I, hearing songs from Realism is where my appreciation of the record begins to slide from “like” to “love.” I’m a little perplexed that I wasn’t instantly smitten with Realism, becomes in one respect it’s the record I’ve wanted Stephin Merritt to make since I was first introduced to the awesomeness of the live Magnetic Fields experience: the songs are (mostly) arranged for the the live band line up, without a lot of obvious studio trickery. But it didn’t initially strike me that “I Don’t Know What to Say” and “You Must Be Out of Your Mind” were as strong as any other Merritt compositions.

Part of the problem, I think is that Merritt’s music functions much better as foreground, but necessity often forces me to treat music as background. But when Merritt’s songs have my undivided attention, it’s apparent how sturdily constructed they are, in so many respects. His lyrics are uncommonly fine, both at a line-by-line level, where he consistently delivers unexpected, witty, and delightful rhymes, and a structural level. He’s adept at several of the time-honored forms: exploring a metaphor through several verses, spinning a compressed, but complete, short-story narrative. Although I’ve heard him accused of being too arch or insincere, his songs also draw on (and evoke) genuine emotion; they’re not exercises in cleverness for cleverness’ sake. And then there are his melodies: in classic templates, but characteristically his (he can even write a blues song a like, a feat few living writers can manage). And the arrangements (particularly his ear for vocal harmony). I could go on and on — oh, wait, I have.

Another aspect of the live performances revealing an album’s pleasures more deeply are the asides between Merritt and manager/band-mate Claudia Gonson. Their dynamic is uniquely charming: simultaneously sharp and sweet. Gonson provokes many eye-rolls from Merritt, each one of which seems worth the admission price to me, but they also sometimes offer unexpected insight into the art, as when Gonson introduced “I Have the Moon”: “This is a song from Charm of the Highway Strip, a record which I thought was about travel, but which I’m now learning is about vampires.”

Bradley’s Almanac captured some more of the hallmark banter.

I wrote about The Magnetic Fields 2 years ago, and I probably would have gone on at greater length this time if I didn’t agree so thoroughly with what I said then.