69 Love Songs

The thing is, if I heard any one of these songs in a movie soundtrack, I’d probably think “oo what’s this fun little indie song? I must look this up and listen to it and maybe save it in a playlist!” (The above scenario does not apply to Love Is Like Jazz, and the vocals in I Shatter, both of which I viscerally disliked) INSTEAD, I was subjected to THREE HOURS of cute indie love songs which become decidedly less cute after hour one.

68 songs too many (figure out the 1 keeper)

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR too long, but I like the approach and overall sound.

There may be a good song every 17 songs here and that might be the only nice thing I have to say about it. A pretentious ego trip for nearly 3hrs. The lyrics are mostly awful and incredibly forced, and are delivered by one of the most boring and monotonous singers on this list. Musically, it’s nowhere near the worst album ever. But it definitely becomes a contender for worst album ever for the audacity of thinking that a bland 69 song, 3 hour concept album is some artistic statement

No one.No. One. Needs to listen to 69 love songs in one sitting.

I’m very familiar with Disc 1 and once upon a time would have said I loved it. (Note that even at that time I couldn’t quite bring myself to undergo the chore of two more discs!) I have to give this a low 3 because I am attached to a handful of these songs, but the whole thing is overblown and cumbersome.

I have never heard of this band nor this album. I just now realized this has 69 songs and is 3 hours long. WTF? Ok... I'll try to do this but not sure if I have the patience for this. There is no way I'm going to listen to this 3 times - like I've tried to do for most albums on this project - or even twice. So that is immediately hurting these song's chances at grabbing me - as I find songs tend to grow on me with repeated listens. This is pretty obnoxious when you think about it. This guy decided he didn't need to edit his song list, "I'll just put out every random crappy song that enters my brain and for which I spent (apparently) a few minutes arranging them". This is way worse than any double album, so many filler tracks. This guy did himself a disservice by putting this many songs on 1 release. I bet I might like more of these songs but it's like climbing a insurmountable wall trying to get through this. He needs to learn and understand the concept of "Less is More". I hate to see what the extended version of this is like - hope they never do that :) Particularly bad songs - "Love is Like Jazz", "I Shatter", "Xylophone Song" I do like when the woman sings, at least to break it up. I did end up liking some of the songs ... "All My Little Words", "I Don't Want to Get Over You", "Come Back from San Francisco", "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits", "The Book of Love", "The Things We Did and Didn't Do", "No One Will Ever Love You". So that's 7 new to me songs which is great - but they made this such a slog to get through. If they could have edited this down to 12 songs this would have gotten a 3 star rating. Liked songs on Spotify: 7/69 Rating: 1/5

Came across this album a few years back as a result of hearing Peter Gabriel’s version of The Book Of Love. I’m a soppy sod at heart so the album appealed to me. Can imagine sat in a darkened room with a roaring fire and a bottle of red with your latest clutch, enjoying this album. But alas those days have long since gone along with the stamina and enthusiasm to get through this very long record. One or two other songs are to the standard of the aforementioned standout track but giving the album length it was a poor show and I expected a lot more. Bit like the present state of my libido. 3/5 1/11/26

Like hell was I going to listen to a 3 hour album!! I looked for a ranking of the songs and listened to the top 12 and I thought: a great album will come out of this. But no. It's minimalistic in its most boring form. At least the other bad albums had the decency of of being less than 1 hour long.

Ok wait. If you guys are really us, what number are we thinking of? Serious props for referencing both Lansing and Gwar, if not in the same song. While there may be a five star album in here, this was 56 songs too long. Leave some for the rest of us. 3.5.

An album that proves the independent spirit of music is still possible. Reno Dakota, The Book of Love, and Acoustic Guitar are on my favorite songs of all time list. Songs on this album will be covered for generations.

Great album, took me half a week to finish and now I'm way behind on my listens. Good going, Mr. Merritt.

I thought this was going to be some kind of trip hop based on the cover, turns out it's a weird country and pop thing. This one feels like it's just a collection of random songs they decided to release as an album. Some of these songs are great, like "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits" and "My Sentimental Melody", although some have bad and annoying instrument choices, some are boring and some songs like "How Fucking Romantic" and "Punk Love" are just terrible. The lead vocalist has a great voice but that's not enough to make the music good. This album is also way too long for what it is, I don't recommend this one. :3

Interesting concept

way too long hello

This wasn't a bad album, but it was an extremely long album. It was over 3 hours long. It had 69 love songs. I didn't hate this, but I don't enjoy listening to something for that long. Some of the songs were nice. I had heard of this band before and I've seen the album cover pop up on things before, but I didn't know any songs on this.

4/10. This should have just been a decent 10 track album. Because you have to listen through 6 or 7 crap tracks to find a good one. And nobody has time for that.

I liked this a lot, I just didn't really dig listening to it ALL in one sitting. There's 4 album's worth of material here! Short, sharply written acoustic tunes with witty themes and lyrics aplenty. Very enjoyable. Heard it before? ❌ Listen again? ✅ Rating out of ten? 8

Five star classic, no notes.

Charming. 6.9 stars

total punishment

Way too long.

Very very long Really quite dreary at times, I think I fell asleep. Male voice not that appealing or understandable most tunes. Female voice more pleasant but also often too low in the mix to understand the lyric. Only a couple of songs stood out. "The Book of Love" was pretty good so give it a bit higher rating. To quote a lyric from the song: "The book of love is long and boring." No truer words, but this is a song I could hear again. Pushes it into a higher 3, was thinking of a 2 before that. Bubble sound effects on the next song not so good. Surely could have used an edit down to a few less songs. Even they got bored of the project with an initial aim for 100 songs but only got to 69. The couple of songs that appeal are just overwhelmed by the dross. This is more true the longer you listen with disc 2 and then 3 just winding down like an operatic death: Would you just hurry up and die already and stop singing!

Edited down to 12 tracks, this might have been an all-time indie album. The time it takes to find the diamonds in the rough is too much.

I already read some rumours and comments about this album on the subreddit. Although still no clue what to expect except for a very long album. I never heard of this album or band before. It is quite an experiment and even understood that the original idea was to write and record 100 love songs but got stuck at 69 which is not really a random number so I wonder if some songs did not make the final album. I had to pause the project to consume all this (it was also during a vacation where listening was not possible every day) . It has a lot of different styles although all can be identified as indie pop or rock except some of the more electronic / synth pop songs. Some I like and are interesting but the album also includes a lot of throwaways. It is just too much to have on one album and some good songs get lost in the dirt of the rest while ploughing through all these indie songs. I guess the strategy is to listen in small batches. The issue is that when listening to a lot of these ‘small’ songs you tend to forget and mix them up and cannot recall what you actually have been hearing to identify some keepers. I have respect for the bravery of the Magnetic Fields to bring this on the market but would probably not buy it.

inovative and interesting collection of odd songs. may not be memorable long term but fun to listen to occasionally.

This is not an easy one. There are some good songs on here, but it’s a three hour album and there are a lot of mediocre songs and filler, and (let’s be honest) in a very, very long album of songs all themed around one topic it does get to be a bit of a chore. Not bad, but I’m not putting myself through this again.

So I managed to listen to this all the way through basically, which is a miracle given the length. There is actually plenty of really good music on this, it's just incredibly long. I've rated it 3 because there's no way I could recommend this album the same as a 4 or a 5, but it is also not bad either.

Wow! 69 songs and not a single misser. The consistency of this thing is baffling. Very widespread and different sounding. The length makes it so the focus can't be held for the whole thing, but it is definitely worth trying. A album that fully deserves to be here!

This must be one of the most unique concept albums ever made. I mean, yeah, it's about love. But then again, when you have 69 songs to spread it across, you end up with a song about nearly every facet of it. And of course, like any triple album (or whatever you want to call it), it has its flaws. So what? Love has its downsides, too. That's the very essence of the concept and its subject matter. It's moody, it's euphoric, it's lo-fi, it's disgusting, it's sugarcoated, it's down-to-earth, it's playful, it's horny, it's heartbroken. And... if you open your album with Absolutely Cuckoo (!) and follow it up with out-of-this-world great bangers such as Nothing Matters When We're Dancing (!!) and Long-Forgotten Fairytale (!!!), you've got all the arguments you need to consider this one of the finest works of music created in the '90s (or, frankly, any decade of the 20th or 21st century). Fuck it. I would defend 69 Love Songs against anything. An incredible, undeniable, immortal piece of art. Big time!

They should have stopped at 13.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through as I'm writing this, and I'm actually quite surprised at the consistency of how good this is over its length. Sure, there's a few oddball tracks sprinkled in ("Love Is Like Jazz" had me chuckling at its absurdity, and I thought the Laibach guy was singing in "I Shatter"), and that's to be expected too, I suppose. But this is quite enjoyable throughout. It is tough as an 'album experience' if you want to be present with it for its entire 3 hour length, which is how I'm listening to it now. But maybe that's not even how one should listen to this; maybe these songs are meant to be scattered apart in a multi artist shuffle, each discrete song being good enough on its own, which they kinda are. Overall verdict: great, interesting, quirky and diverse, a touch too long for me (I got to 50 before getting a little restless, but I did listen to all of it), but I like this. 4.2/5.

I generally dislike long albums and concept albums but somehow that didn't bother me much here. Yes, it is far too long and would have been better as a trimmed down single or double album, but I still enjoyed it. Nice variety of styles present and while I realize it isn't for everyone, I like his voice. The female vocalist was also great.

It's a vibe. Honestly, I can't focus on the songs for the entirety of the 3 hours, and I've tried a few times over the years but I still enjoy it. Honestly, if they just took the best 14 songs it would be a really good but ultimately unremarkable indie album. The experiment of making it 69 songs long is what makes it to l worth listening to. That there isn't any song on here that's actually bad is a real achievement, even if some if the songs are fairly forgettable.

Good grief brother I am for a concept but Jesus 69 songs that are all boring? I have to be honest that I could not finish this in one day. I’ll keep slogging but my experience today leaves a lot to be desired and the run time of this on top of it is so hard to forgive. Cool concept though. Will adjust if songs 44-69 change my life.

An endurance test on par with *Trout Mask Replica*, the insufferably twee lo-fi numbers here don't even rise to the level of your average b-sides collection. On top of that, singer Stephin Merritt's smarmy bass-baritone voice is pitched so low it sounds like the record is playing at the wrong speed.

Good sound, but did not finish, 69 is too many songs for a brand new artist...

Vaguely remember hearing of the band The Magnetic Fields but don’t think I’ve ever listened to anything by them. OH GOD ITS THREE HOURS LONG. Not sure I’ll finish all of this today unless I really enjoy it. Early on and it’s very early 2000s indie pop rock vibes. His deeper voice sometimes makes it sound like older dated music. There’s some fun songs here and the theme of it is somewhat fascinating. When the female vocals show up it’s a nice change of pace. But 69 actual songs! That’s so long. I think the length makes individual moments stand out less because there’s just a lot of total volume of music to get through. Gotta say I’ve enjoyed a lot of the music through the first volume. But there’s some really bad stuff sprinkled in. Just useless nothing songs. Don’t know if I’ll finish this whole thing. It’s been long. First volume was enough but I’m still listening. Feels like a 2. 1 feels too mean. There’s some good music here and the idea is ambitious. It’s just way too much. Got through first two volumes.

Coming avross bands and albums i have never heard if was what i was hoping for when i started this. Never heard of The Magnetic Fields. I inwardly snigger like a child at the album name, then outwadly laugh when I realise it must have been deliberate. Some great songwriting on here, particilarly the lyrics. The somgs are browf, the styles varied, they are well packaged and put together, not over complicated, aimple and effective. But the lyrics, great persistence to theme without becoming boring and such a wicked wit throughout.

Way too many. Some quite clever, but desperately needed an editor.

I didn't get to the end and there's a reason for this. Repetition is fine in music on the basis that you can't have too much of a good thing. But it needs to be a good thing.

I looked back at my notes from the last time I listened to this and given I was on holiday I had been pretty generous. There are a few good tracks on here but overall it’s a dull, self-indulgent album. You have to be special (Ella Fitzgerald) to go on for so long.

I'd have settled for 10 half decent songs. 1*

I have to admit I failed to listen to the full 3 hours of this - although I did listen to the first 15 songs a few times. Was surprised to recognize and enjoy a couple of them (All My Little Words and The Book Of Love) from either old playlists or adverts or later covers. These songs aside the majority of the other songs felt fairly slight and generic with throw away corny lyrics and the overall vibe is fairly disposable. Based on the 15 tracks I listened to it was a 1/7 hit ratio - extrapolating this would be 10/ 69 tracks. A lot of fluff to trawl through for a limited payoff.

That took a few sittings to get through. Became a struggle. Another indie darling I could never get into. The Spotify play numbers give a big clue to this album - some good songs with lots of listens and some others that fall flat. I like the concept of the album, but a dozen love songs would have made for a good album, or go for a dirty dozen and add that thirteenth voyeur track if it floats your boat. 69 is hard.

Well, that was quite the experience. I think it took three days on and off to get through this whole thing. And some of it was really lovely. But, other parts were experimental and weird, and I didn't like them. And the whole thing was SIXTY-NINE BLOODY TRACKS and it felt like an absolute ordeal to get through, regardless how nice any of it was. Screw these guys for putting this into the world. Save up the good bits, bin the crap and make two decent albums instead of one stupid kooky mammoth.

Even listening to this over 3 days as 3 separate albums was too much. There's some songs in here I thought were fun, or at least caught my attention but it could easily have been cut down to a single albums worth of material without losing anything.

I thought this was a deluxe album with how many songs were on here. There’s no way I’m getting through all of this, will update where I stop. After getting through the first disc, I feel like I’m pretty much done listening to this. I’m not tapping out yet, but I’m very close. Abigail actually gave me a headache. I had to skip it, but I managed to get through Disc 2. How am I going to go on for another hour? Who knows… I can regretfully say I made it through the entire album. A lot of reviews say that this record is extremely ambitious. I don’t argue that, but there’s just so many songs here that they all muddle together and even if it was good, it can be hidden deep within the track list. Anyway, hated it. Never bring me back.

The obvious negative - the pure arrogance, self-indulgence to release an album that clocks in at three and a half hours. There is no excuse for recording this many songs and saying, “yep I simply can’t narrow that down, include the lot”. It seems like it’s mostly an exercise to achieve an album title with the most obvious and puerile sexual gag going. There is plenty of rubbish among the 69 tracks too, as you would rightly expect, and it’s a real shame a lot of the dross was left to feature on the album. The positives - well, his songwriting is incredible, the lyrics are at time genuinely funny as well as heartfelt. He has quite a captivating voice, but also chose some guest singers very well, to at least partly break up the monotony of a 210 minute album. A good mix of styles, genres and instruments, most of which were played by Merritt himself as I understand it. There’s a 5/5 album somewhere within all of this, but realistically I’m never going to play this in its entirety ever again, it’s just too frustrating.

In all honesty, I didn’t have three hours to listen to 69 love songs, but I like this band and will return to this album when I have more time.

Soa como uma compilação de belas canções, mas não faz o menor sentido um disco com 172 minutos de duração.

69 kærlighedssange skulle originalt have været 100 åbenbart men så blev de 69 til lidt en joke. Gode indie pop sange som er meget korte og går på tværs af mange genre. Jeg tror de sange jeg brød mig mest om havde banjo på dem eller sådan lidt new wavet eller post punket. Konceptet var egentlig at dokumentere alle måder der er blevet skrevet kærlighedssange på igennem tiden og jeg synes faktisk at det lykkedes godt i at være distinktivt og udholdeligt at lytte til på trods af længden.

It just goes on for far too long. I can't.

69 tracks and three hours long - I wasn’t buzzing for this one. However, I quite enjoyed it! The songs are catchy, and rarely outstay their welcome.

Too many songs. Could have been exceptional with a critical edit.

It’s actually 69 songs… Oy. One star quality, I’ll throw in an extra for committing to the bit

This is a big ask. It’s just about three hours. And I’m going out on a limb and saying it’s average at best. Yeah this was quirky and maybe amusing. Sounded like a college group project. Obscenely long.

Holy moly, that is a lot of work. Reminded me of The Divine Comedy in places. Maybe a hint of The Velvet Underground in others. Leonard Cohen sometimes. Even a dash of The Human League. Showtunes. And a tad of Guided By Voices. All with a side-order of late-90s wafty indie. The sheer dizzying scope of it is almost comical. No way I could sit through it in one stretch today but we got there eventually. I normally dislike overlong albums but you have to admire the beautifully mad, manic output of a project like this. Like an artist's sketchbooks, it's an interesting and unvarnished glimpse into the act of creation. There must be a rock-solid 20-track album lurking inside this. And I suppose that's the joke. Not sure I'm prepared to put in the work to excavate that jewel - but I enjoyed the initial mining well enough 😅

I can't imagine this album would've made this list if it was called, say, "13 Love Songs" or something. But that's without me knowing anything of the Magnetic Fields or their potential influence, so perhaps I'm being ignorant before listening here. This is as advertised: a collection of songs about love and love songs in their own right. A lot of what I heard sounded almost ironic, but it seems like that may have been the point. The long runtime allows for a lot of experimentation of course, as there isn't really one consistent style or sound throughout. I can't lie...there are some stinkers here, but a select few kept me somewhat engaged due to either the creativity and/or the sheer absurdity. Couldn't really get on board with Stephen Merritt's voice, but there's enough variety in the performances here for that to not be a major issue. I was ready to shit on this before listening, but it was just...fine! Kind of understand its inclusion on the list a little better now, but I wouldn't call it a personal favorite of mine or anything.

Hab ich probiert! Grausam!

It was ok

너무 길어서 힘들었지만 평가에 영향을 줄 정도는 아니었다. 중간 중간 귀를 사로잡는 괜찮은 노래도 있었는데 중간 중간 고막을 테러 하는 노래도 있어서 전체적으로 평범했던 것 같다. It was a bit of a struggle because it was so long, though not enough to significantly affect my assessment. There were some catchy, decent songs scattered throughout, but also some that were an assault on the ears, so overall, it felt pretty average.

I mean, very few acts out there can pull off a triple LP, and I'm not entirely sure whether The Magnetic Fields is one of them yet. I'd be lying if I said that this thing lacked its share of good songs; in fact, looking back at how many songs I liked, they could easily add up to over an hour. But that's still a third of this record...so where does that leave me? The fact that the songs on this album jump between different vocalists, styles, genres, mixing styles, and fidelities was maybe this thing's saving grace. Except maybe the end of the first disc; it never really got stale, and as the album went on, I grew more enamoured by what I was hearing, like an old rundown jukebox that's been playing for decades hitting its final legs. The song 'Yeah! Oh, Yeah!' really snapped my attention back; it's such a neat and fuzzy-sounding track, like a vague memory of a more complete version of the song. I think it was actually the third disc where everything really clicked for me, but the first half of disc one was also pretty much back-to-back bangers, albeit more straightforward ones. The run from 'I Don't Believe in the Sun' to 'Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits' was entirely composed of great standalone cuts. And I guess this album's influence should be stated too. Yeah, you get some pretty streamlined country-rock and indie-folk songs pretty early on in the first disc, but the lo-fi moments, be they the very opening track 'Absolutely Cuckoo' or a bunch of the stuff on the second disc, feel very predictive of '2000s indie and '2010s bedroom pop. And I can't ignore the datadump style of this album - there was definitely thought put into the sequencing, but its semi-messy nature is still endearing and predictive in its own right. Just like the Ella Fitzgerald and Gerwing album from this list, I can't bring myself to rate this poorly given how impressive it is in scale. It's such a massive and dense record, and yeah, I did ultimately zone out here and there, but this is yet another album on this list that just can't be judged based on a day's worth of listening. There is a gold mine here, I'm sure of it. So yeah, to answer my earlier question, I think 'The Magnetic Fields' did a pretty good job at this triple LP thing.

3.5

I’d been dreading doing this one for ages, and it’s obviously way too long but this is surprisingly consistently great and I love how varied it is. I probably won’t listen again in full but I can respect the ambition.

TL;DR: Stephen Merritt's indie pop magnum opus. BEFORE: It seems a bit rough to deliver this on anything other than a weekend, but I'll give it the old college try. Like most casuals, I know The Book of Love. AFTER: Obviously it's very long, but the sustained quality of the songwriting more than makes up for it. It is, by turns, playful, witty, sad and silly. The lyrics are wonderful and the singing and playing is excellent and varied enough to hold your attention. I listened to this in several stretches over the day so I don't have detailed song notes but this is a staggering achievement - certainly the best triple-album I've ever heard and better than most doubles. VERDICT: 5 stars.

Tedious

Cool concept, mostly decent songs, but got boring.

If you think I’m going to listen to all 69 tracks taking up 2 hours and 53 minutes of my day, you are sadly mistaken. I cherry-picked a handful of songs, and boy, was I glad I didn’t waste practically three hours of my life on this shit. This feels like an incredibly self-indulgent album from a band I’d never even heard of before. And while I appreciate the commitment to the bit, there comes a point where “ambitious” becomes “someone needs to take the aux cord away.” Two hours and 53 minutes of this is less an album and more a hostage situation with a tracklist. Nothing I heard from my carefully selected handful of songs remotely convinced me that there was anything here demanding nearly three hours of my life. If anything, the songs made me increasingly grateful that I had the foresight to sample this thing like a person inspecting questionable leftovers. The whole thing feels half-baked, the vocals sound like they’re being delivered by someone who was told singing was optional, and the lyrics are just… stupid. Not stupid in a fun, dumb-rock-song kind of way. Just the kind of stupid that makes you wonder if everyone involved kept nodding along because they were afraid to be the one guy in the room who said, “Are we sure about this?” There’s a smug, self-satisfied quality to the whole thing that I just couldn’t get past. It feels like The Magnetic Fields desperately wanted to make something profound, quirky, and clever, and instead made an album that sounds like it thinks it’s much more interesting than it actually is. And apparently, they needed 69 songs to make that point. Fuck The Magnetic Fields and their 69 Love Songs.

Well, you have to hand it to these guys. Coming up with 69 consistently bad songs is an accomplishment. You don't see any other bands doing this. Recording them and releasing them for everyone to hear was their big mistake here. It was also a mistake to have this on the list. I guess when you're reaching down to the bottom of the barrel, you can always find something.

Great

cutie

En vrai ça va pas trop mon kiffe

An album about love in all its forms, at all stages of life. Absolutely stunning. One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced.

I listened to this in college, judged it as "English major music," and never really thought about it again. It absolutely is English major music, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed revisiting it. I've grown a different appreciation for songcraft as I get older, and it is an impressive achievement in itself to write so many songs that sound different from one another, are not in some kind of generic form or style, and generally hang together successfully. Historically, I think of this as a the direct link between Beat Happening and Sufjan Stevens, and I definitely prefer the songs that tilt closer to the former than the latter.

69 songs over 170+ mins was a huge concern coming in! It's safe to say, I was not looking forward to this! But actually results were surprisingly ok. I mean... look... there's good and bad tracks on her. It's hard to maintain consistency over this length and they absolutely don't do that. But there were moments of this I genuinely enjoyred.... it's just far too long to appraise in one sitting and unfortunately thats' all it can get... for now at least!

I was powering through this and something hit me. I am not being paid to do this. Listening to every album in full will not tested. I will not earn an advanced degree in Musicology. There is no reason to listen to something I don’t enjoy. I gave it a shot and fuck you Mr. Fields for being up your own ass and thinking we want to spend that long with you. 2 stars 2

Not that good

So this is where Jens Lekman got his style from! Love his voice and song writing. Intriguing to discover what song was coming round the corner here. Kept my interest through three records. Admittedly split in to several listening sesssions over several days.

Made it half way through and did not hear anything worth listening to again.

not listening to allat. haha 69

69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields. Containing 69 songs (over 3 discs) by The Magnetic Fields. Fuck. That.

Highlights: Parades Go By, Sweet-Lovin' Man, The Book of Love, Absolutely Cuckoo, All My Little Words. In a nutshell: Mr Merritt's Opus. Yep. It's a long one. It was supposed to be 100 Love Songs, believe it or not. For your first listen, I recommend playing in three sets of 23 songs, either in order or on shuffle. And lean in. They're not love songs. It's songs *about* love and around love. It's a "you gotta listen at least once all the way through". It's whimsical, heartfelt and quirky, stopping short at being "twee". Overall: 6/10

Some lovely little songs. But there are sooo many of them. Too much in one sitting for me.

Some nice tunes, some legendary tunes, most sound kinda like stuck in their demo-stage.

I mean, come on! This one was formative for me, and the triple album by which I judge all other triple albums :)

Dosta užasan album, ne sviđa mi se uopće. 1/5, 1/10

I will admit that there were a few good songs on here, but a 3 hour album is pretty fucking ridiculous. I don't see why this needed to be included on here

This is a 3 hour album, basically a double double album. It did take me 3 sessions to get through it but I am so impressed that I wasn't tempted to just turn it off. It's like if you challenged a genius to write a song a day for 69 days and then put it the whole lot out without trying to whittle them down. It's a real insight into a musician's songwriting process. I feel like maybe 6 of the songs are really moving and stay with you, then maybe 10 of them are quite throwaway and silly. The key to this album working so well is that so many of the songs are so short. When they have 90 good seconds of a song, it stops there and doesn't just stretch for the sake of it. There is also a wit, restraint, and honesty in all of these songs that you can appreciate even if the song itself isn't a winner.

what the fuck

SIXTY NINE???

There are SO many songs.

Not so brilliant, much more a waste of time

Den mest gjengående kritikken i lyttegruppa er at skiver ofte skulle vært kortere. Trengte dette å være et dobbeltalbum? Svaret er sjeldent "ja." Men her er lengden selve konseptet. Det er noe overdådig, impulsivt, irrasjonelt ved å sette seg ned å skrive 69 poplåter om popmusikkens mest fruktbare konsept. Resultatet er et album hvor variasjonen både i kvalitet & genre er med på å løfte det som kunne vært et enestående enkeltalbum til en kolleksjon som transcenderer formatet nettopp på grunn av hvor sprikende det er. Det finnes et argument for at dette er det ultimate White Album albumet. Her er det balansegang mellom grenseprengende popmusikk med melodier & texter som går head to head med musikkhistoriens største legender (I Don't Believe in the Sun, All My Little Words, The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side osv. osv.) og åpenbare throwaway gags (Punk Love, How Fucking Romantic, Roses etc.). Det som gjør skiva til mer enn summen av bestanddelene, er hvordan det å presentere åpenbare mesterverk side-om-side med låter som ikke er like umiddelbare skaper vektspotensiale som ikke existerer i en skive som er trimmet til perfeksjon. Plutselig dukker en låt jeg ikke tidligere har bitt meg merke i opp i hjernebarken. Det finnes ikke ett perfekt 40-minutters album her, men flere. Og det avhenger ikke bare fra person til person, men mellom stadier av livet til enkeltpersoner. Disse skivene kan vokse med deg. Og det krever et spesielt talent å få til. Dette er ikke 50% B-sides & outtakes; cuts som aldri burde forlatt studioet; spor som aldri burde blitt fanget på magnetic tape. Stephin Merritt er noe så gammeldags som et musikalsk geni. Det er åpenbart en kreativ overflod der som egner seg for en viss type masseproduksjon. Også er det heller ikke noe krav eller forventning om å høre skiva i en sitting. Den er åpenbart frontloadet, så første discen er en perfekt introduksjon til Merritt's musikalske univers. Og det er virkelig et univers.

Albumet er egentlig perfekt for strømmealderen: Mange korte låter for å maksimere avspillinger per bruker? Apropos strømming så føles det kanskje som om 69 Love Songs tenderer mer mot en velkuratert spilleliste enn et album, men det er nok pga lengden. Jeg vet ikke om det er meningen at man skal spille hele i en sitting en gang? Uansett så er det bemerkelsesverdig hvor mange gode låter som er på albumet, og at det aldri er kjedelig. Spilleliste eller album, bra er det uansett.

No album needs to be this long. I'll relisten to it somewhere down the line but 69 songs? It's ridiculous.

To say it’s a bit overlong is probably missing the point. There are definitely dips and the overall experience is a little tough to digest, but occasionally they stumble on a song so classic sounding you can’t believe it isn’t a cover of a torch song. I think everyone should listen to it, despite its imperfections.

Like one of the greatest albums ever. How are there that many GREAT songs on one project. Fucking stellar well done magnetic fields. Going to be listening to this for the rest of my life.

Holy hell. How is it possible that three hours of music sounds so fresh all the way through. It’s all amazing and some of these songs are simply transcendent. It reminds me of Randy Newman in its simplicity and beauty in lyrics. Just great. So glad I’ve heard it.

very many songs, but most of them are good