Magnetic Fields Realism. The Magnetic Fields have had a nistory of underachievement from their admirers. They began in the indiepop ghetto with Distant Plastic Trees and The Wayward Bus. They weren't on Merge in those days. I remember finding a copy of Distant Plastic Tres at Sam's Jams in fashionable Ferndale. After the viaduct was opened, before everyone fled Royal Oak for Ferndale. Near to the zoo. It was an amazing find. At the time. It may still be my most favorite Magnetic Fields. There is a documentary on the Magnetic Fields soon hitting the theater erm...theater. Will it travel to Denver? Will I make it through the surely hagiographic narrative? Probably. I think this is a wonderful record. Unlike many more learned than I that have proclaimed it less than satisfactory. A Magnetic Fields record ellicits curious responses. Disposable online presentations send out an a.p.b. for professional students(I can scoff now although I was once one but in fact I studied Physics along with Social Contract Theory) well versed in post modern dialectics and didactic uselessness armed brightly with four dollar adjectives and their concern about whether this is compelling enough to justify the honour of having them spend 11 minutes writing about. What's that? They spend more than 11 minutes writing four sentences? At least I offer the illusion of commitment by writing at least as long as the record plays. The first track has been playing during my opening rant, it's drab and clever and I rather like it. It is the one most often discussed in reviews and most everyone likes it which makes one think perhaps professional record reviewers are lazy and have listened to only the first track. It is a difficult life. Writing reviews for publications no one has heard of and yet not for compensation but for eternal glory. 35 years from now when records are recorded only uzing zithers and cocoanut shells someone, the Nick Southall of his time, will bring up your name in a falsely reverent tone. Whoo!!! Second track. Is this Shirley Simms? It is gorgeous. But of course he doesn't mean it to be gorgeous. I saw a blip of Daniel Handler from the documentary and he went on about how people think Stephin writes from his personal viewpoint and he doesn't. So this beautiful track is merely beautiful on the surface, scrape gently and the unending fount of bitterness and timely cynicism comes to the surface. Or am I misinterpreting that? I kid, of course. I'd love it if Stephin Merrit really cared about whether people thought his music is beautiful. I do. Does he actually only spend sleepless nights in worry over if people consider him clever? What a curious thing. I'll wait for the documentary to discover the truth. I could email Gail O'Hara. Hootenanny now. No one likes this one. Who knows why! It's marvelous. It isn't clever, it is campy, he's gay, he's allowed to do camp. This is the problem with the egghead reviewers as they are approaching this not as an indiepop recod but as something more significant as it relates to popular culture. Ask the next 17 people you meet on the 16th Street Mall in Denver about Stephin Merrit and all that will be returned are blank stares and the rich kids from Cherry Hills will ask you for money from behind their glazed stares of vacuousness. Irony. His songs are not complex. If I actually practiced I could play his songs. My friend K showed me how to play Come Back From San Francisco once and apparently he uses the same chords in all of his songs. But he knows how to construct songs, he does write charming little vingettes and his performance is not usually mailed in. He does romantic, he does impossibly dour, he does bored, he has a full repertoire of emotions it seems. But there is that shield. Which is what should exist because if I were to stand in his apartment and notice a Yann Martel novel on his book shelf and somehow relate it to one of his songs then I would be fantastically disappointed. It is how his music breathes and lives free from his being. Compare to say someone like Stuart Murdoch. God Help the Girl, those songs are marvelous, really, but I don't much like that record because he is so closely related to his music. Can you imagine anyone other than Stuart Murdoch singing Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying? I can not. So for the duration of God Help the Girl I was thinking gosh I wish Stuart had sung this instead of listless attractive young woman number 3. Doll's Tea Party exists on its own. Each song its own universe. Claudia Gonson or Shirley Simms or Andy Williams, it doesn't matter. Next track, all of them are exceedingly short. Cello, why doesn't Sam Davol sing? I don't know. Does he speak? Is he in the documentary effusive with praise? In concert he and the guitar player seem mute and thoughtful. Perhaps their deepest thoughts are written on tiny scraps of square shaped pink note paper and they fold them neatly into their shoes and later Stephin holds his hat out under their noses at the end of the day and they deposit their thoughtfulness carefully. Another beautiful song this. Every song is marvelous. Really. I didn't like the last record at all. Apparently the conceit this time around was to play an entire record on instruments that did not need to be plugged in. Tesla and Westinghouse be damned! It worked. Much better than teen dream Stephin having a therapy session while in a Jesus and Mary Chain Karaoke bar. Next track, gorgeous, male and female voices, winds and distant aches of affection and drama and dreams and anonymity. Is it wonderful because he rarely uses proper names in his songs? Stuart Murdoch is all about the proper name. This may be an answer to why the Gigi record is so delightful, especially now that I've deleted the less delightful tracks forever, but the forgotten man, the average "joe" is a generic face in the crowd hiding his struggles in view of everyone else but we see that person each morning glancing back from the mirror. Come to think of it Belle & Sebastian may have ben the original Livejournal. We're having a marvelous life, my friends and I, do despair for us for we are so unhappily engaged in mirth. Another Shirley song. She's the world's greatest singer you know. Then why is it that he doesn't have her sing all of the songs? I don't know. This one is gorgeous as well. You know back in the day, before the college courses on Papa Was a Rodeo the live version of the Magnetic Fields was always a treat. The ten cent disco replaced by Stephin on muted electric guitar and Claudia on piano. They would play dozens of songs, each one of them more magnificant than the next and there would stand Godzuki in the corner after having concocted their rareified kraut-maelstrom wondering how a short man and his guitar could hold an audience so rapt. It was the songs. We love Godzuki. Some love Dion more than most. Erika playing the drums, sigh. Seduced and Abandoned. Lovely. Do people outside of lame indiepop bands cover Magnetic Fields songs? Will Natalie Cole release a standards record soon with The Desperate Things You Made Me Do featuring smartly? Unlikely, but there is that stray wonder that escapes that attempts to consider the possibility of Stephin Merrit with an unfixed budget, with professional singers, with the encouragement of the age to create something truly inspiring. I often go back to 69 Love Songs and discover that I do actually love every track within but it is still small, tiny, miniscule. What could Glen Ballard do for Stephin Merrit? Will we ever find out. But then Better Things now and it is perfectly formed. Small and perfectly formed and despite the wall of indifference between creator and audience it still causes stirs that can be created only by the gifted. Henry Moore is laying about in the botanic gardens. I will be lucky enough to witness this every single day soon. I will live in the botanic gardens for a short period. And I will have conversations with Henry Moore through the bronzed beach figures relaxing in the sun. I'll ask him what he might have thought of Stephin Merrit and he won't reply but I'll smile syly and walk over to my colleague from work, who will be next to me thinking of Megan Fox and Natural Light and he will elbow me in the ribs and marvel at the bronzed breasts. It will be a dream come true. Dada Polka. On his book shelf is probably a photo of Stephen Mallinder looking at a Marcel Duchamp painting, for inspiration. Or so I hope. He probably has a photo of his mother playing tennis actually. We'll have to wait for the documentary for the truth to be exposed for all to see. This song represents the difference of love as a subject and love as a theme. Are there dance steps included in the liner notes? Yes-yes? No-no? I like this album very much. Last song sadness now. Many of the songs on here could have been last song sadness contenders. From A Sinking Boat. Is it Daniel Handler on accordion? I have read two Daniel Handler books recently. I didn't like either. I am all about Golems and Judaical history in fiction but the works seemed agitated, I never felt comfortable in the story. Perhaps Stephin Merrit should write his books as well.