Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Wipe that devilish grin off your face It's not that kind of '69' P by Kevin Langston Gamecock Critic It is now crunch time in the scholastic sense of things. We students have mounds of work to do with very little time to do it. While it’s the same routine met with the end of each semester, we can never really get a handle on the exam period of school. Lucky for us, we get a little break time in the form of Easter weekend. It’s just enough time to gather our wits and collect ourselves before run ning the proverbial exam gauntlet. However, if some of you really don’t care about proper prepa ration, you’re in luck. The Magnetic Fields are making a stop Fri J .. A_! 1 .. • uaj npin 1.1 ai uic “u Trail viuu 111 Athens Ga„ and they’re bringing their songbook ofj69 love songs with them. Released in the early fall of last year, The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs has received much critical acclaim, mak ing Magnet magazine’s No. 1 album of the year. In a year where more con centration was placed on the album as a whole (The Flaming Lips’ The Soft Bulletin, Wilco’s Suni merteelh and Tom Writs’ Mule Variations), The Magnetic Fields managed to turn heads and gain much deserved attention with their series of three albums devoted to love. Each album can hold its own separately (they are offered as individual releases as well as in the box set), but they work masterfully as a whole. Each album carries 23 songs that expose, interpret, explore and engage in love. What’s am.ty ing is that while all the songs tire centered I around one subject, they never sound re dundant or forced. Sure, some songs arc stronger than others, but with each comes | a new and interesting look at love. The songs vary in genre style mid tone. You could be laughing at the country-esque visions conjured up by a song like “A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off’ or lamenting for the broken-hearted singer of “I Don’t Believe in the Sun." If there is one constant through the entire set (besides the obvious theme), it is the music. The music is beautiful, and if you can’t get past the deep, moaning vuicc ui amgci Jicpimi mcimi, the music should make up for it. While it can be quite jovial and silly at times, the music never throws itself off its pace. You can always grab the song’s tone by hearing just the first few chords of the music. Mer ntt supplied a perfect soundtrack to these words of love. Merritt, in an interview published in the box sets book, says many things lurk behind his love songs. He admits that while people are writing love songs, they aren’t really doing it in bulk. He thinks there is a lack of modern-day love songs on the ra dio. “Most of them are not the expressions of ad miration or affection for another individual. Al most all of the new ‘women’s’ music, for exam Photos Special to The Gamecock (Above) Claudia Gonson (piano, drums, percussion) and Stephin Merritt (Top right) Sam Davol (cello and flute) go over their music in the studio. pie, is third-person narratives-or condemnations of one’s mate, rather than an expression of affection.” Merritt wants his love songs to be timeless and meaningful to anyone and any period. He wants ■ it to be “something that people will think is a love song a year later. Something that’s primarily a love song.” The obvious question is, why 69 love songs? According to the story, Merritt came up with the idea for 69 Love Songs while sitting in an el egant midtown Manhattan gay piano bar. He originally planned for it to be a live musi cal revue, performed with a rotating cast of singers in the plush hotel bars and cabarets of New York ■ City. “First I thought of it as a revue of-100 loves songs, just because 100 means a lot of things. Then I realized that just at two minutes a song, 100 love songs would be 200 minutes long, which is hours and hours, and no one would want to sit through a revue like that, however good it was.” Merritt knew he would have to trim the idea down. “The next lowest number that had an other relevant meaning was 69, which I chose as much for its graphic possibilities as its obvious relation to romance. It’s a vi sual palindrome. It would make a good logo on a Broadway poster. I wasn’t think ing of it as a record yet.” It became an idea for an album when Merritt realized he that would have to make an album before the revue could be a pos sibility. Meige Records reminded Merritt that he was long overdue for a new Magnetic Fields album—he had spent the previous threee years making records for his other bands The 6ths, Future Bible Heroes, and the.Goth ic Archies — he decided to make 69 Love Songs as his next album. His hope is that eventually, the songs will be performed as the musical revue they were always intended to be. All the previous Magnetic Fields albums have followed certain themes, such as escape, country roads, Phil Spector, vampires — so the idea of cre ating a new theme for this album was only naiur. al. Merritt was seemingly hesitant about the idea of three albums devoted to a single theme. “There is no theme other than the obvious one. Any theme would get really painful really quick ly over the course of 69 songs.” Perhaps this is why each album was released separately as well, but regardless of the large song count, The Magnetic Fields chose the perfect theme for their set. Love is a timeless and powerful topic that will always raise an eyebrow when mentioned. Everyone, even the cyn ics, is capable of feeling and giving love, even if it is self-centered There •fore, Merritts choice of theme im mediately guarantees it’s timeliness and import. Love will always be our fascination, but only when placed in the proper hands.can it be art. Mer ritt makes love art, and does a magnificent job in doing it. The compositions on 69 Love Songs are some of Merritt’s most ambitious and diverse to date. But they still honor his time-tested themes of life, loss, hope and beauty. While traditionally The Magnetic Fields have essentially been a solo effort in the studio, Merritt incorporates the help of friends and bund mates for this bold undertaking. Guest vocals are provided on 24 of the 69 songs by Shirley Simms, Claudia Gonson, Dudley Klute and LD Beghtol. Love Songs see page 4 FI 1 □