I could go on about Stephin Merritt's vast output, and his beautiful clever lyrics that remind one of Morrissey or Neil. "Distortion" is pretty brilliant- sonically modelled on "Psychocandy" by Jesus and Mary Chain, famously- echoes and reverbs galore, and (I Hate) California Girls" is pretty great.. wall of sound.
But tonight I really only want to highly recommend getting your hands on the opening track, echoey surfer psychedelia , building up in layers to the joyous exclamation that is the song's only words and the title:
"Three-way!"
Seriously a fun track. Merritt's interesting, must confess didn't know much about him before.
If you like Magnetic Fields, he did a cool challenge from NPR to write and produce a song in two days. They provide the rec. studio and the inspiration: one image and one phrase they have to write a song about . I really like the song he came up wih, it reminds me of PSB somehow- a b-side.
But damn cool, and interesting to see how songs come up with really talented people..
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=15859351
The Magnetic Fields, "Distortion"
-
Hillbilly
- Posts: 2647
- Joined: Tue 11 Apr 2006, 6:28 pm
Distortion is great! Sure it's not as accessible as their previous output. The distortion takes a while to get used to and some may be put off by the sound.
Howver there are some catchy melodies to be found amidst the wall of sound - and as usual Merritt's lyrics are dark but funny!
"Too drunk to dream" is perhaps the best track, the most typical Magnetic Fields song here. You can hear a few songs from the album on their MySpace site:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... =311079687
Half of the songs are sung by Merritt himself, while the others are performed by guest vocalist Shirley Simms, who also appeared on the magnifique 69 Love Songs.
My favourites are, except for the one mentioned above, "I'll dream alone", "Drive on, driver", "The nun's litany" and "Zombie boy".
You look very pure for so long in the ground
You smell like a sewer but you don't make a sound
I feed you ordures to keep Poopsie spellbound*
I'd like to make sure you'll be sticking around
Zombie boy...
Some funny lines in that song, but what does the third line * really mean? Does it mean what I think it means?!?
And I don't get what he means by "Let's make you a bride with another two c****" in the second verse...
Howver there are some catchy melodies to be found amidst the wall of sound - and as usual Merritt's lyrics are dark but funny!
"Too drunk to dream" is perhaps the best track, the most typical Magnetic Fields song here. You can hear a few songs from the album on their MySpace site:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... =311079687
Half of the songs are sung by Merritt himself, while the others are performed by guest vocalist Shirley Simms, who also appeared on the magnifique 69 Love Songs.
My favourites are, except for the one mentioned above, "I'll dream alone", "Drive on, driver", "The nun's litany" and "Zombie boy".
You look very pure for so long in the ground
You smell like a sewer but you don't make a sound
I feed you ordures to keep Poopsie spellbound*
I'd like to make sure you'll be sticking around
Zombie boy...
Some funny lines in that song, but what does the third line * really mean? Does it mean what I think it means?!?
And I don't get what he means by "Let's make you a bride with another two c****" in the second verse...