Linkstew

So I was trying to write a review of TMBG's No!, but I got distracted thinking about the process of writing a music review. I thought back to many of my earlier album reviews, where I had a pretty established format -- I'd introduce the album's background, and then highlight a couple of songs that were notable in some way -- and then finish up with an overall recommendation.

But lately, when I've tried to write an album review, I've failed pretty miserably. On the one hand, there was my review of TMBG's Mink Car, where I couldn't bring myself to focus on just a few songs, and so just commented on all 17 songs in a bare bones list format.

And a little before that, there was my review of The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, where I more or less floundered and failed to say much of anything useful at all. In particular, I didn't have much to say about notable songs on the album.

But I've been rating a lot of music with iTunes 3, and I happened to listen to all of 69 Love Songs again today while doing ratings, which gave me a list of my favorite songs on the album pretty easily. I ended up rating 15/69 of the songs as a 5, and another 14 as a 4. Even though my average rating for the album was only 3.315, it's important to remember that there are 69 songs on this sucker.

Anyway, in a fit of procrastination, I decided to pick my four top songs off of each volume and write up why I liked them, to supplement my old anemic review. While reading this list, I recommend opening the lyrics so you can follow along at home.

Volume 1:
• Absolutely Cuckoo - Volume 1, Track 1 - This song just left me grinning madly the first time I heard it, and it still never ceases to make me at least smile. I rather identify with the obsessive traits this song expresses.
• Reno Dakota - Volume 1, Track 5 - I love the sing-song sound of this ditty and all the clever rhyming, but most notably, I love the line "You know you enthrall me and yet you don't call me it's making me blue -- Pantone 292."
• I Don't Want To Get Over You - Volume 1, Track 6 - Really, I just really like the sentiment expressed by this song. Here's the first verse: "I don't want to get over you. I guess I could take a sleeping pill, and sleep at will, and not have to go through what I go through. I guess I should take prozac, right, and smile all night at somebody new. Somebody not too bright, but sweet and kind, who would try to get you off my mind. I could leave this agony behind, which is just what I'd do if I wanted to but I don't want to get over you." I could really see myself expressing these sentiments.
• My Sentimental Melody - Volume 1, track 20 - This song evokes lots of imagery for me: I see the man sadly standing at the door, singing the song to the girl who just calmly broke up with him. I like the idea of his words coming true -- of his sentimental melody some day bringing a tear to the terrible flirt's eye. But honestly, I think it's the sound of a light being clicked off at the end of the song that does it for me. It conveys this huge sense of finality, and I see the man turning off the light, shutting the door, and walking away to leave the girl to think about what he said. I like the idea of closure a lot, and that click somehow conveys "the end" to me like little else could have. The click also gives me the impression that the man (and this song) is saying "I'm over you, and you might think you're over me, but you're not."

Volume 2:
• When My Boy Walks Down the Street - Volume 2, Track 3 - This song just puts a spring in my step and quite honestly, makes me want to dance down the street. And truthfully, I do have a little dance that I'll do to this song when I don't think anyone is watching. And stranger still, the only part of the lyrics that are relevant are "when my boy walks down the street" and "life just kind of dances through ya'." Every other reason I like this song and dance to it is just because of the music.
• (Crazy for You But) Not That Crazy - Volume 2, Track 10 - Honestly, the main reason I used to like this song was because of what I thought the lyrics said. Of course, I still like the song, and now I have an amusing little story to tell about it, but I don't like the actual lyric as much as the lyric in my head.
• Promises of Eternity - Volume 2, Track 12 - I really love all the imagery of the "what if's" in this song, especially "What if the clowns couldn't be clowns, and all those painted smiles gave in to plaintive frowns?"
• Long-Forgotten Fairytale - Volume 2, Track 15 - I really like this song for a lot of reasons. I really like the description of the break-up, because it's just so simple and pragmatic and matter-of-fact: "I saw you last in summertime. You said you hated long goodbyes. You said there's nothing to explain, in every life a little rain, et cetera." I really like way that they fall back together is described as being magical and fantastic and like a fairytale and out of control: "And a long-forgotten fairytale is in your eyes again. And I'm caught inside a dream world, where the colors are too intense, and nothing is making sense. There's a floating town of eiderdown in a mist of mystery. There's an old enchanted castle, and the princess there is me, decked out like a Christmas tree." And I really like all the descriptions of the internal struggle the narrator is dealing with. Really, I just like this song a lot.

Volume 3:
• Busby Berkeley Dreams - Volume 3, Track 3 - First, this song is very pretty and makes me feel sadly nostalgic (which is a good thing). Second, I absolutely adore the line "I should have forgotten you long ago, but you're in every song I know."
• Meaningless - Volume 3, Track 12 - This song has great lyrics, and you ought to just go read them all. But honestly, there isn't one single part of it that jumps out at me as being my favorite, so here's the first bit: "Meaningless. You mean it's all been meaningless? Every whisper and caress? Yes yes yes, it was totally meaningless." The whole song is variations on that.
• Love is Like a Bottle of Gin - Volume 3, Track 13 - Oh, this song is absolutely great, and isolating any tiny bit of the lyrics would do an injustice to it. In short, it does a fantastic job of explaining why "love is like a bottle of gin, but a bottle of gin is not like love." It works just as well as poetry as a song, too, so you should go read it right now.
• How to Say Goodbye - Volume 3, Track 18 - Well, mainly I like the line "The only thing I could ever feel, I can't believe it wasn't real...," (Really, I'm just tired of writing this, and I'm skimping on why I like this song. Sorry. But rest assured, it got a 5.)

So, for those of you who have heard 69 Love Songs, what are your favorite songs? And for those of you who haven't, I highly recommend you go check it out right now.

My actual reason for doing this was to encourage people to go check out The Magnetic Fields. Look at it this way: Any band which Neil Gaiman likes and arranged to do readings in front of as an opening act, and any band which Terry Pratchett recommended to me personally, can't be all bad.

Speaking of Guinness, there's a song on 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields called "Crazy For You (But Not That Crazy)". This has been one of my favorite songs in the collection since the first time I heard it, mainly because I thought it contained the amazingly clever line

"I performed acts of devotion, as if you were Guinness..."

But then, just a couple of weeks ago, while reading the 69 Love Songs box set insert, I glanced at the lyrics and saw that the line actually goes

"I performed acts of devotion, as if you were Ganesh..."

note: This post has three different, randomized punchlines, because I couldn't pick just one. Either reload or check the source for the rest.

Well, I mentioned The Magnetic Fields last night, and then Peter mentioned them, and suggested that Rabi liked them, and then Kevin jumped in and suggested that now he was going to have to look into them, which prompted me to walk down the street to Amoeba and pick up a copy of their box set -- 69 Love Songs. 3 CD's with 23 songs each.

And I've been listening to the album for the last 12 hours, since I picked it up at about 2 this afternoon. And I'd be lying if I claimed I felt qualified to do this album justice in a review at this point, so I'm just going to attempt to channel my gibbering happiness with this album into a quick and dirty endorsement. As if Pratchett and Gaiman (and Peter and Rabi) endorsing The Magnetic Fields wasn't enough, now you've got my endorsement too (and probably Kevin's soon as well).

The first song, all by itself, brought a huge smile to my face, and I listened to it three or four times before moving on. And then, at Peter's recommendation, I listened to the first disc twice, and then the second disc twice, and then the third disc twice. And now I need to go back and listen to the whole thing again reading all the words, because I'm already hooked on the music, and I already love the words I catch (there are a few tricky spots).

The album obviously has a theme, and it executes that theme with incredible skill. And the interesting thing about packing that many love songs into an album is that everyone will find something that speaks to them in the set. Be it the feeling that "I don't want to get over you," or the sentiment that "No one will ever love you," or loving "The Way You Say Good-Night." And the reason I grabbed those sentiments and not others is because those are the titles of songs, and ones that popped out at me as I scanned the list. It seems like it's got everything there, and you'll find something for you. Really.

As far as their style goes, it runs the whole range. When I was about halfway through, I felt like I couldn't actually identify The Magnetic Fields' own style, and instead I was confused by all of the misdirection. It seemed to my like every song was parodying some other style. But I'm pretty familiar with bands who flirt with every style under the sun, and so now I think I can more or less pick out the unifying elements between the songs. But even unable to detect those unifying aspects, I was still enjoying every new song as it came along.

Except for "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan" (disc 2, track 22). The way that one bounced back and forth between the two speakers of my headphones built a standing wave inside my head and made it explode. Really. It was one of the most obnoxious things I've ever experienced, which is a shame because without headphones on it's another nice song.

It's worth mentioning that the set comes in two forms: Either the whole box set can be bought at once, or the three discs of the set can be bought individually. I highly recommend you dig up the change to get the box set (or all three discs), but if you can only afford two, go for discs 1 and 3, I guess, but I can barely recommend that -- it's like breaking up a family. But it's really an amazing album, and I only regret two things about it: 1. That I didn't look into it right after Pratchett recommended it to me, and 2. That I can't fit the whole thing on my Rio -- only 2/3 of it -- and I don't want only part of it there.

While waiting for Gaiman at Cody's tonight, I overheard someone behind me say "Yeah, Gaiman just did a concert with the Magnetic Fields..." Which immediately caught my attention, and actually motivated me to turn around ask for some information about the band. You see, when I saw Pratchett speak last year, I was wearing my They Might Be Giants Flying Carpet/Mysterious Woods T-Shirt, and when I went to have my copy of The Fifth Elephant signed, the first thing Pratchett said to me, before I'd even had a chance to say anything to him, was "Have you ever heard of the Magnetic Fields?" Well, no, no I hadn't, I told him. And I tried to find something about the band at the time, but couldn't (I obviousy didn't look very hard), and forgot about them right up until tonight at Cody's.

It would seem that the Magnetic Fields are tied to that shirt, because, of course, I was wearing my They Might Be Giants Flying Carpet/Mysterious Woods shirt tonight as well. And the guy behind me suggested that Amoeba has their CD's, so I'll have to go look into that one of these days, because if Pratchett recommended them and Gaiman likes them...