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It’s not easy to inject humour into songwriting but Merritt does it seamlessly, peppering sweetly sung melodies with just the right amount of acerbic lines – the cynical and the sentimental balanced beautifully. These 15 tracks are perhaps his most consistently well-executed examples of this, and they also mark The Magnetic Fields’ return to the celebrated sound that made their name – the scratchy synths, delicately strummed acoustic guitars and baroque strings of 1999’s 69 Love Songs.
As Merritt and fellow lead vocalist Claudia Gonson take turns to deliver terrifically twisted ballads, you can almost hear the smirks throughout Your Girlfriend’s Face’s cool, calm plot to hire a hitman, while crunchy electronics cackle in the background. And the knowing glances and cheeky winks continue on Merritt’s odes to celibacy (God Wants Us to Wait), women cursed with a wandering eye (The Only Boy in Town) and slightly unhinged obsessives (The Machine in Your Hand).
The wit flips regularly from hilarious to heartbreaking – and Merritt frequently manages to conjure up both in one song (I’d Go Anywhere With Hugh, I’ve Run Away to Join the Fairies, My Husband’s Pied-a-Terre, Quick!) and then, suddenly, becomes deliciously camp. If there’s a better opening line in a song this year than "Take me away from this horrible party and let me get home to mother" (The Horrible Party) then we’ll eat our (party) hat. Then there’s the girl who spurns her other half in favour of dancing because All She Cares About Is Mariachi; on it, Merritt sighs in his beautiful bass tones, "Go there, and wear your hair like Liberace."
And then there’s a glorious little ditty like Andrew in Drag, its subject matter of a self-professed "ladies man"’s sexual confusion subtly pioneering over a bossa nova beat – as the narrator finds himself falling for a boy dressed as a girl. "My tail began to wag," Merritt croons, "The only girl I ever loved was Andrew in drag." Twenty-three years into his career and he’s still pushing boundaries.
--Camilla Pia
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Customer Reviews
A fair few of the songs, whilst still quite enjoyable, feel VERY standard - in the past, even when some songs within the typical Mfields framework sounded similar, there was always some instrumental flourish or vocal melody to pick things up a bit and make it more identifiable, but on this album, a few too many, for me, sound simple very VERY "standard" - very uninspired, though due to the band's almost immediately recognisable, loveable sound, they do not exactly stray into "bad" territory - but if you are as big a fields fan as me, it is hard not to be slightly disappointed that so many of the songs lack that extra something to make them more memorable. HOWEVER, a fair few still do - Even if not quite as memorable as some of what has come before, a number of tracks are highly catchy and may soon find themselves in some best of playlist of the band soon (as they did with me).
Some of the highlights mentioned above are the single, Andrew in Drag, a highly fun, funny, cheeky song with a memorable sound - Infatuation (with your gyration) is something a bit different, but has a cool sound, and gets quite "dancy" in a very likeable way - The machine in your hand sounds quite standard, but, to me at least, has quite a memorable on going vocal melody and I find myself listening to it more and more - ditto with My husbands pied-a-terre; again nothing highly inspired, and not a classic, but VERY enjoyable, good old fields sound, just a good wee song. The last two tracks are my favourites: Quick and All she cares about is mariachi. Mariachi in particular has a very memorable style of vocal from Merritt.
So, whilst not anything approaching the band's best, most inspired album, there is a lot to enjoy from this bright, breezy, jaunty wee album - a fair few good songs, and no real BAD ones means that whilst it does not inspire much, it doesn't exactly leave you with feelings of major dissappointment either. Better than realism, but nothing approaching Distortion, songs, or highway strip - you are probably more likely to get something out of this quirky wee album if you are a major fan of the band's sound.
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