The Magnetic Fields - 50 Song Memoir 5 LP/CD Box Set Out in March

The Magnetic Fields - Artists »

Finally! The new album from The Magnetic Fields will be out in March. It's a five disc box set composed of 50 songs, one for every year of Stephin Merritt's life. Comes with a 100+ page booklet.

Pre-orders from the nonesuch store come with an autographed print while supplies last.

Listen to five new songs here.

 

Very cool concept with a lot of potential. 69 Love Songs has a lot of great material and I still dig it out occasionally. I don't know the last time I listened all the way through though... It's a time commitment, that's for sure!

 

Love those 5 songs and I'll definitely be getting it, but no way I'll pre-order this far in advance. Hopefully a cd version will be available. Good to have Mr. Merritt back and in obviously fine songwriting shape.

 

Hurrah. I really rate Love At The Bottom Of The Sea but suspect I am in the minority.

I prefer it when Claudia is the sole female vocalist; for some reason I don't enjoy Shirley Simms' voice as much. Seems like we're getting neither here though.

Still, long may they continue.

 

Early bird vinyl pre-order for $104.97 up at Bullmoose. Says list is 124.98, but I just might wait and see what my local store has it for anyways. But for anyone interested...

The Magnetic Fields - 50 Song Memoir (5LP) »

I'm excited to be able to see him perform these at the Big Ears fest in Knoxville. Anyone else able to make to any of the shows for this?

 

The 5 cd set is up for pre-order at Amazon for $44.98. Now that's a price I can live with.

 

$31 at Import CDs website, at least as of a couple days ago.

 

Great concept, but my suspicion is that Merritt is past his prime as a songwriter so we may end up spending considerably more per gem than we did on 69 Love Songs.

 

Disagree. I was wavering around the time of Distortion and Realism, but was balanced out by his other projects. Also, Love At The Bottom Of The Sea was a very strong return to form.

 

"The Book of Love" is such a great song.

 

I was all-in until Distortion and Realism but I found those albums gimmicky and skipped Love At The Bottom Of The Sea; maybe I should go back and give that one a chance. Either way, the strike rate has slowed.

 

Who's to blame for concepts like this? George Harrison? Billy Corgan? Or rather Axl Rose?

Any. Way. When German Amazon had the vinyl for preorder at 82€ I pressed the button. One always can cancel once initial reviews are not encouraging.

 

He's been releasing snippets of every song a day at a time for awhile now on Twitter (I'm assuming FB or elsewhere as well). I've purposely avoided, but has anyone listened in on them? Any thoughts so far?

 

It's getting closer. First reviews are looking promising:

50 Song Memoir by Magnetic Fields

A rare show of unity from MOJO, Uncut and Record Collector. Can't wait for Pitchforks review though...

 

Amazon pre-order on the cd set is down to $33.89.

 

Have still say I'm getting less excited about this with every song released. Some nice stuff, but also a bit meh.

It's also notable that both Claudia Gonson and John Woo are absent from the recent promo photo, which isn't encouraging.

 

Discs 1 and 2 streaming at NPR: First Listen: The Magnetic Fields, '50 Song Memoir'

 

NPR messed up. They're only suppose to include a new disc with each day until the release, but since yesterday (and possibly before then), when you click on "Listen to Full Album" you can hear the entire album (Well, except Me and Fred and Dave and Ted, which is a duplicate of another song mislabeled). I've only listened to it once, and I really like it. While 69 Love Songs undeniably has some better material, I think this album is more consistent and doesn't fall apart towards the end of the last disc like 69 Love Songs does. It's their best album since I (though I really like Distortion and Realism, but lots of people don't.)

 

Just played the box in its entirety. It's remarkably consistent. And the pressing is flawless. I guess from now on I will play a record a day - to get a grip on the material - but I wanted to confront myself with the sheer scope of this project at least once. Recommended!

 

Playing the vinyl now, about 1/2 way through. And I agree, no clunkers so far. We'll see as I progress. Very quiet vinyl. No printed inner sleeves. The booklet looks like a memoir notebook/diary. Appropriate. It came packed with 3 sheets of bubble wrap to keep everything from moving around. Which is nice, but I feel like they could have just made the box smaller? Minor quibble. I will be seeing him do these shows in 2 weeks so I will definitely be spending more time with this music before then. I do miss Claudia singing on some songs. But for the memoir gimmick I guess it does make sense for him to sing them all?

 

I only found 1 song to be kind of a throw away (The Day I Finally....) in the same way I think of Punk Rock Love or How Freaking Romantic were from 69 Love Songs. And it's nearly impossible to not compare the two sets. I don't think 50 Songs is better than 69, but that's not really fair of me to say after only 1 listen of the new one. I also felt like I wished it ended with a stronger song than the last one. But it says right on the back of the box "And if things get mellower as 50 looms, that's life." so...

 

anybody able to use their download code? I'm getting a 404 error message with the site on my card? I'm not spelling it wrong...

 

I gave mine to a friend, no problems. At the moment I'm enjoying the booklength "liner notes" which are hilarious and probably as revealing as SM will get.

 

The whole album was available on Tidal last friday. It's not anymore, just a few songs.

 

I found somebody posting on the Magnetic Fields FB of the same error issue. I'll assume we have different addresses to redeem them from different countries? I reached out to Warners via the contact us page. Awaiting their response. There aren't any downloads to "find" on the net yet either.... I'd really like to get this on my phone so I can take it on a trip in the car!

They also pared it down to just 20 songs on Spotify...

ETA: Also someone on the Nonesuch FB having download code issues. The site doesn't work... www.redemptions.warnermusic.com/50songmemoir