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The Magnetic Fields - 50 Song Memoir [5CD Box Set]

Details

Format: CD
Label: NONESUCH
Rel. Date: 03/10/2017
UPC: 075597940909

50 Song Memoir [5CD Box Set]
Artist: The Magnetic Fields
Format: CD
New: Available $39.99
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Formats and Editions

DISC: 1

1. '66: Wonder Where I'm from
2. '67: Come Back As a Cockroach
3. '68: A Cat Called Dionysus
4. '69: Judy Garland
5. '70: They're Killing Children Over There
6. '71: I Think I'll Make Another World
7. '72: Eye Contact
8. '73: It Could Have Been Paradise
9. '74: No 1
10. '75: My Mama Ain't 1
11. '76: Hustle 76 1
12. '77: Life Ain't All Bad 1
13. '78: The Blizzard of '78 1
14. '79: Rock'n'roll Will Ruin Your Life 1
15. '80: London By Jetpack 1
16. '81: How to Play the Synthesizer 1
17. '82: Happy Beeping 1
18. '83: Foxx and I 1
19. '84: Danceteria! 2
20. '85: Why I Am Not a Teenager 2
21. '86: How I Failed Ethics 2
22. '87: At the Pyramid 2
23. '88: Ethan Frome 2
24. '89: The 1989 Musical Marching Zoo 2
25. '90: Dreaming in Tetris 2
26. '91: The Day I Finally 2
27. '92: Weird Diseases 2
28. '93: Me and Fred and Dave and Ted 2
29. '94: Haven't Got a Penny 3
30. '95: A Serious Mistake 3
31. '96: I'm Sad! 3
32. '97: Eurodisco Trio 3
33. '98: Lovers' Lies 3
34. '99: Fathers in the Clouds 3
35. '00: Ghosts of the Marathon Dancers 3
36. '01: Have You Seen It in the Snow? 3
37. '02: Be True to Your Bar 3
38. '03: The Ex and I 3
39. '04: Cold-Blooded Man 4
40. '05: Never Again 4
41. '06: "Quotes" 4
42. '07: In the Snow White Cottages 4
43. 08: Surfin 4
44. '09: Till You Come Back to Me 4
45. '10: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 4
46. '11: Stupid Tears 4
47. '12: You Can Never Go Back to New York 4
48. '13: Big Enough for Both of Us 4
49. '14: I Wish I Had Pictures 5
50. '15: Somebody's Fetish

More Info:

Nonesuch Records releases the Magnetic Fields’ 50 Song Memoir on March 3, 2017. The five-CD / five-LP set chronicles the 50 years of songwriter Stephin Merritt’s life with one song per year; it was produced by Stephin Merritt with additional production by Thomas Bartlett and Charles Newman. On tour, the Magnetic Fields perform the 50 Song Memoir over two nights per city, beginning tomorrow and Saturday, November 18 and 19, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA, and continuing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) on December 2 and 3. Further dates begin in spring 2017. 50 Song Memoir is available in five-LP and five-CD editions including an extensive interview by Daniel Handler and facsimile handwritten lyrics by Merritt, and as a standalone bound book with a full-album download card.

Reviews:

Merritt began recording on his 50th birthday: February 9, 2015. Unlike his previous work, the lyrics on 50 Song Memoir are nonfiction—in Merritt’s words, “a mix of autobiography (bedbugs, Buddhism, buggery) and documentary (hippies, Hollywood, hyperacusis).” As he says in the album’s liner note interview with his friend, the author Daniel Handler, “I am the least autobiographical person you are likely to meet. I will probably not write any more true songs after this than I did before, but it’s been interesting working on it.”

In addition to his vocals on all 50 songs, Merritt plays more than 100 instruments on 50 Song Memoir, ranging from ukulele to piano to drum machine to abacus. In concert, the music will be played and sung by a newly expanded Magnetic Fields septet in a stage set featuring 50 years of artifacts both musical (vintage computers, reel-to-reel tape decks, newly invented instruments), and decorative (tiki bar, shag carpet, vintage magazines for the perusal of idle musicians). The seven performers each play seven different instruments, either traditional (cello, charango, clavichord) or invented in the last 50 years (Slinky guitar, Swarmatron, synthesizer). The stage extravaganza will be directed by the award-winning Jose Zayas (Love in the Time of Cholera, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter).

        
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