Reviews (page 3 of 9)
Yeah, you got me fucked up if you think I'm gonna listen to a 69 song album.
I think Sufjan Stevens should join the Magnetic Fields and they should record 69 love songs for each state.
not sure what this is, it seems to be a mash up of different songwriters styles. Not for me though
Not for me
bored the tits clean off me
Great stuff…. But 3 hours though, I did not manage to complete but will revisit. Genuinely different.
First there's the childish amusement of seeing the name of this album - Then there's the horror of realising that this is indeed 69 songs long. Surprisingly though I couldn't help but enjoy this - full of charm, wit and character.
Deserves to be on the list just for its sheer audacity. But it’s also wonderful. It’s an album of love songs, yes, but specifically about all type and shapes and parts of love. The wonderful highs and the desperate scary parts. Love is both the greatest and scariest thing in the world on this album. It takes all forms. There are desperate pleas, happy long marriages, pining, horrible bouts of unhinged depression, horniness, queer romance. It also bounds between genres and styles, playful flippancy and dead serious dirges. It’s a wonderful experience listening to the whole thing and identifying parts you relate to, past hurts, current elations. Fuck.
cute
Yeah no, 69 is way too many songs for an album. What the hell
I’ve heard of this album and always sort of thought the title was a cheeky joke because who in their right mind would put 69 songs on an album. Boy was I wrong. It’s too much music to ask the listener to pay attention to in one sitting and certainly too many to keep ensure the quality of the product. Even if you’re the most creative band in history with multiple songwriters contributing, this many songs smacks of a lack of self-editing. It also means that in order to record this many songs on an Indy record label budget you have to just burn through songs in the studio or record it yourself. Either way the end result is the same, sub-par recordings. All of that is in evidence here, variability of song quality, lack of self-editing, and poor sonic quality. Now the music itself. I have a similar crooner baritone that I’ve always kept bagged as corny or mockable, and here are almost 69 (he doesn’t sing them all) examples of why I was right to do so. I can’t take him seriously. The textures they choose are often just weird not cool and sometimes distractingly grating. It’s not all bad but some energy spent concentrating this vivacity into a focused set of a third the length would have been well spent.
Themaverfehlung
Nichts rechtfertigt eine Albumlänge von 2:45h. Die Bereitschaft 65 weitere Songs zu hören ins Bodenlose, wenn die ersten 4 nicht besonders gut sind. Diese könnte man zwar mit 2-3 bewerten, aber diese muss ich auf 69 songs verteilen -> 1
So if these songs are about love why do they sound like a funeral dirge? Seriously it's the longest most depressing album I've heard. So go listen to the Peter Gabriel cover of The Book of Love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZQIfEN_p2A It's a great version. The version on this album, the original, is trash when compared. So I listened to the entire thing. This is a miss for me. To long for it to work as a concept. To weird to work as a normal album. It's just not fun. Like a dirge.
I recognized more songs than I thought and some of it was lovely but almost 3 hours?!?! Way too much.
It was like actually 69 songs
Long forgotten fairytale the goat
It’s really long but I do like some songs.
No way I'm listening to this for nearly three hours.
Happy for you man. 5/5
Funny. Don’t hear a lot of it…or a lot. 2.7 love the vocals of one of the leads.
Interesting. Parts of it I really did enjoy. And parts I hated. But definitely different and interesting. 2.5
Reminded me of they might be giants’ Apollo 18 with the silly songs that you can put on shuffle. Like the idea of it, but can’t listen to all of it. So extra.
I thought we were being juvenile with the title a d it was love songs to 69 to, but no, there are 69 fucking songs on this. First instinct was to give it a 3 in exchange for not listening, but that felt wrong. Made it through disc one and that was as much as I could commit to. It has the vibe of the vampire musical from "Firgetting Sara Marshall" but there is no way I want three hours of it.
An amazing concept, and done very well. Keeping a good level of quality.over 69 songs is impressive
Favorite track(s): Disc 1: I Don't Believe in the Sun, All My Little Words, Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits, I Think I Need a New Heart, Parades Go By Disc 2: Grand Canyon, No One Will Ever Love You, Washington D.C., Papa Was a Rodeo Disc 3: I'm Sorry I Love You, The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure, I Can't Touch You Anymore, There are highs and lows, but it certainly isn't a strong argument for anybody else for follow suit.
The amount of songs in this album was a bit daunting but I enjoyed every single one. My favorites were: "All My Little Words", "The Book Of Love", "My Sentimental Melody", "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing", "The Things We Did And Didn't Do", "Time Enough For Dancing When We're Old", "No One Will Ever Love You", "You're My Only Home" and "Papa Was A Rodeo"
This could have been a 4 if there had been about 40 less songs.
No conocía está banda. Me gustó un montón; muy experimental.
Diversiteit, ambitie, en veel te lang.
Oh, actually, the album is pretty nice. Little songs with catchy melodies in simple arrangements. I doubt it was really necessary to record a 3-hour album with them. Maybe I’ll even listen to it again. Probably not, though, because there’s plenty of other music that interests me more. 3/5
Hard to believe this album exists, but it's exceptional
Afgezet na 20’
te lang, saai en ni zo goed. 1.5
muy largo estoy brainrot, despues lo rateo
Wow, that was a trip. It's bloated, of course, and it's mostly novelty songs that I don't have much interest in revisiting again. But it was clever and often funny, too, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I'm glad I listened to the whole thing. I had to pause the project and spread this over two days. Washington, D.C. was a personal favorite.
För många låtar. för olika låtar. wow vilket maraton
gimmick.
Props for the concept
Over indulgent and over long. If one were to take the 8 or so best songs from this and make a normal length album, it might be decent, but most of this 3 hours was boring.
This is a concept album (love songs or songs about love songs) undone by a gimmick (a whole bunch of them at once). Whatever impact the album could have had is lost in the leaden morass of its length. There are ways to achieving both without subjecting listeners to what this became. The wit, the experimental, the cute gets flattened. The fact that music critics loved this when it came out (I'm old enough to remember it), speaks more to their vanities than their understanding of a good album.
This album has some real highs, but it simply does not have 69 songs worth of good material. Love is Like Jazz is trash, but that was the only song I actively disliked, so in the end I think this is surprisingly close to fulfilling the promise of its length (not quite there though).
I have all the Mag Fields' records up to and including this one, and spent several years in the late 90s listening to them obsessively and seeing them live. This was the last one I bought, though; I think it was so long that I guess that was enough Mag Fields for me. But anyway. Some of these songs on here are still my favorites because of the cleverness of their lyrics: "Papa Was a Rodeo," "Washington, DC," "Strange Eyes." "Yeah, Oh Yeah" is particularly amusing, the way it turns the pop song convention of a verse with agreeing chorus of "yeah" to be much darker: - What a dark and dreary life! Are you reaching for a knife? Would you really kill your wife? - Yeah, oh yeah As a whole, the record is a bit much, though. I think if I were more into show tunes, I'd like some of the sillier (and/or more sincere) things on here better - Merritt originally conceived it as a theatrical revue, which isn't a thing I would tend to go for. But the songs I like on here are great.
Really one of the best album experiences I’ve ever had, my gosh. I really did love this.
Heh 69
Impressive!!
A giant parody album. It's funny, and it certainly does a great job deconstructing love songs. The genre leaps keeps it from being boring, but it is just entirely too long. Even with most songs hovering around 2 minutes long, this is just obnoxiously long. Additionally, none of the songs are particularly memorable. I'm glad I heard it once, but it's unlikely that I would ever listen to this again. It was funny to see so many extremely high reviews of this album, but if you think about how many music critics want to be the smartest person in the room and tell everyone else that they just don't understand an album with bad singing and that they're just too much of a mouth-breather to be willing to sit through a three hour album, then you start to understand why there are so many positive reviews. The idea of this album is funny and the execution is even quite funny. I enjoyed a lot of it, but if the length and lack of hooks makes it so I never want to listen to it again, how can I say that it's good?
tosh
-2 stars for the length. Pick 10 songs randomly. It’d be better..
oh my goodnesssssss... what an absolute slog. this was so difficult to get through my god. i mean, i have to think/hope that this band has better works to be introduced to. but jumping in to a nearly 3 hour random generator of different songs that maybe relate to love somehow... wow what a maddening thing to listen to
It’s too damn long. I only added 5 songs out of 69 to my ‘best of…’ playlist. I can see some influences here and there, but I’m not coming back to this one.
I'm sorry, but even if it was with Margot Robbie, 3 hours is too long for love.
Kinda weird...very low, monotonous singing with interesting sound effects at the beginning...very long album (69 songs). Not cohesive at all, very all over the place. The songs led by female singers were better; the one guy who sang a lot of them was not good at all.
Songs are fine, nothing standout, but they weren’t bad. It is legitimately 69 songs long, almost three hours.
Ahh die is lekker rustgevend, moet wel zeggen dat ik ze niet allemaal heb geluisterd
So it literally takes nothing at all to make this list? -5
A great collection of charming songs. I've had the virtue of hearing this before, and I don't know if it'd really suited to a challenge such as this by nature of it's length, but it's worth a go.
Theres a bunch here, but a bunch of meh.
What I like best about 69 Love Songs is that they don’t half-ass any of them. Are they all memorable? God, no. Are they all good? You can’t write 69 hits, though it would be nice. Would any other band try this? Maybe Guided By Voices, but that’s beside the point. I like that Stephin Merritt and Co. dedicated themselves to nearly three hours of music just so they could get to the sex number. That’s commitment. It’s pretty front-loaded with the bulk of the best songs on the first disc. But there’s plenty to enjoy here, especially when Merritt’s voice digs down to that sonic register that makes Thurl Ravenscroft green with envy. Was he raised on a diet of tar and gravel? Favorite songs: Absolutely Cuckoo I Don’t Want to Get Over You The Book of Love Fido, Your Leash is Too Long A Pretty Girl is Like Love is Like Jazz (Crazy For You But) Not That Crazy Papa Was a Rodeo Underwear The Death of Ferdinand… The Night You Can’t Remember Xylophone Track
I cannot listen to this oh my god 3 hours and it’s fine I tried a few but I don’t see a reason for any one album to be 69 songs and I cannot imagine they’re all worth putting on an album it feels self indulgent and boring
The presence of the banana album is felt for sure. I mean it’s exactly what is says on the tin and it does a pretty great job at it. Is every song a winner? Nope. But it’s an absolute behemoth that is worth sorting through. You can say “cut this down and it would be better” but I think everyone would pick a different set of “best” songs. This is worthwhile.
You ever go to Chicago and get one of those deep dish pizzas? They're fun. They take a while to come out, but it's a unique experience. The first bite is great! The first slice is yummy. Then you start the second slice, and ask yourself, why on earth does anyone need this much dough, sauce & cheese, this thing could last me a week and by the end I'll end up hating it. That's this album. Too much of any one thing just makes it worse. If it was culled down to 14 songs I'd be much more willing to listen to it more critically, enjoy it, and give it a higher rating, but ain't nobody got time for that.
Demasiadas canciones; hay que ser más modesto y escoger algunas. Curioso, pero fallido.
3 hours? Nice try, but I'm not listening to all that.
Nice.
It's never more than ok. But 3 fucking hours?! Luckily I was board and I had some bourbon.
I don’t really know what to say about this album other than i love it. It’s so silly and impressive and variable and also will sometimes make you feel something so strongly. Here are some bits i like in particular: Astronomy will have to be revised. Roses It’s divine, it’s asinine, it’s depressing and it’s almost all window dressing. But it’ll do. All of when my boy walks down the street. World love W ASH ING TON baby DC! I like your questioning eyebrows Love is like a bottle of gin but a bottle of gin is not like love Well i shant go to Balie today i must stay home and Hoovre What a joy to listen to the whole thing i can wait to do it again.
A sick day at home has ended up being a blessing in disguise as I’ve listened to this while resting without other distractions and wow it’s been rewarding. In honour of the smorgasbord of sounds and types of love songs, here are some of my listening notes much less edited than usual: I love a theme, and I love dedication to a theme Love his rich deep voice, a beautiful sick day lullaby Sad love songs are my favourite type of love songs “Now that you’ve made me want to die / you tell me that you’re unboyfriendable” All My Little Words is very beautifully sad. North Carolina shout out to boot! Things it’s made me think of: The Before Trilogy Orville Peck How fun US states song mentions are I love nostalgia Juno and that era (this is much better than that soundtrack tho) Favourites from 1st listen (imagine each listen would be its own journey with how much is here): I Don’t Believe In The Sun All My Little Words I Don’t Want To Get Over You Reno Dakota Sweet-Lovin Man No One Will Ever Love You Washington D.C - was very excited for this one to come up and love with how silly it is Busby Berkeley Dreams Think Disc 1 was my favourite? I’m glad this is on this list not just as a music knowledge gap box tick, but as its own mini world Maybe I’ve been biased slightly by your prompt to listen Flynn but I’m glad I knew to took my time with this going in!!
I would like to state from the outset that I simply haven’t had enough to time to truly appreciate this album, but that I am looking forward to coming back again and again. 69 Love Songs really made me reconsider my definition of “love songs” because to me, this was like 56 (rough estimation) break-up songs, which are obviously full of love and yearning, but exist in a separate category for me. It was also oodles of fun and full of whimsy, which we need more of, and I’m also glad to have listened to this album in a stable emotional state because I just /know/ some of these lyrics would have destroyed a different version of myself. I love how they experimented with genre and tone throughout the record. There was no sameness that has plagued some of the other long albums we’ve had and really felt like they were trying to challenge themselves with creating love songs across the musical spectrum. Faves in no particular order (or, the order in which they appear on the album): - A Chicken… - Reno Dakota 🌟 - Luckiest Guy… 🌟 (also takes my fave lyric for “I’m the luckiest guy on the Lower East Side, ‘cause I’ve got wheels and you want to go for a ride”) - I think I need a new heart - (Crazy for you)… - Promises of Eternity - Papa was a rodeo - Queen of Savages - I love you I can’t… - The Night you can’t… - For we are the kings… This is a narrow 4.5 rounded up and I’m looking forward to this album becoming a mainstay
If it’s good enough for Olivia Rodrigo, it’s good enough for me! Have actually been listening to her recent cover of The Book of Love quite a bit lately, which felt like great preparation for this, although can one ever be fully prepared for a 69-song long album? I think Flynn’s prediction for my rating will be a 2, if only because I’ve previously complained about albums on here being so long, but I loved this. Conceptually so cool, so much variety and I never knew what to expect. There were moments where I was like “oh I’m listening to sufjan stevens” and other songs that reminded me a lot of They Might Be Giants. It was a journey and probably my favourite brand new album to discover from the whole project so far. Went back and listened to some of my faves again already today and look forward to delving into some more I think (although very hard to say) my faves were Crazy For You (But Not That Crazy), Washington DC, Mo One Will Ever Love You, Bitter Tears, Reno Dakota. But will require some more relistening to fully recall each of them
that’s too many songs to be fair i’ve always sort of actively disliked the book of love so this didn’t bode well for me
This is one of the greatest artistic pieces of work of all time. Authenticity is an interesting concept in music. I want it to be real and come from a genuine place. A good love song feels much better when it feels like someone actually feels that way (which is why Amy Winehouse is so good). Any yet, Stephen Merritt defies all odds by deciding to write 69 love songs just because he can. They might not be about anyone or a specific relationship but feel like they are. Musically they jump from genre to genre and never stay long enough for the 3+ hours to feel like a slog. The best quality of this album is its lyrics though. Sometimes Merritt is profoundly personal and heartwrenching (Grand Canyon comes to mind) and sometimes he’s quirky and hilarious (“he’s making me blue, Pantone 292” is the line that sticks in my head the most for this). This is a masterpiece and I’m glad to listen to it every time I do. (PS I think Arkady will give it a 2 (due to length), Emily a 4 (she loves lyrics), Brook a 3 (she’ll forget about it when she released her review in a month) and Gemma a 5)
“The book of love is long and boring”. You know what else is long and boring? This album
69 songs, almost 3 hours is an insane album. I feel like a lot of artists have a whole lot of songs that don't make the cut when they make albums. This band ignored this and released them all. Unfortunately that means that the average quality of songs isn't that great. A few songs are good but most of them are okay to meh. Listening through all those songs also made the few good songs disappear so after it was over I couldn't even remember what songs I liked. A good experiment that didn't pan out for me.
Very much not my thing
Released on September 14, 1999, *69 Love Songs* is a three-hour conceptual marathon divided across three discs (23 songs each). What began as a "publicity stunt" to escape the limitations of a five-song EP evolved into one of indie rock's most celebrated achievements. The album catapulted The Magnetic Fields from college radio cult favorites to critical darlings, earning a 10/10 from *Spin* and placing second in the *Village Voice*'s prestigious Pazz & Jop critics poll . --- ## Lyrics: The Architecture of Affection Stephin Merritt's lyrics operate on multiple sophisticated levels simultaneously. The album's central conceit, as Merritt himself stated, is that "it's not remotely an album about love. It's an album about love songs, which are very far away from anything to do with love" . This meta-textual awareness permeates every track. **Literary Craftsmanship**: Merritt's wordplay is consistently dazzling. In "I Don't Want to Get Over You," he rhymes: *"Or I could make a career of being blue / I could dress in black and read Camus / Smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth / Like I was seventeen, that would be a scream"* . The humor is self-deprecating yet precise, mocking the performative aspects of heartbreak while genuinely feeling it. **Subversive Analogies**: "A Pretty Girl Is Like" exemplifies Merritt's strategy of destabilizing cliché through extreme metaphor. He compares the titular figure to a minstrel show, a violent crime, and a melody before landing on the deflationary conclusion: "A pretty girl is like… a pretty girl" . This technique—building elaborate conceits only to collapse them—exposes the artificiality of love song conventions while paradoxically reaffirming their necessity. **Queer Sensibility**: The album's queer perspective was "under-remarked upon at the time" but is fundamental to its DNA. Merritt's detachment from heteronormative love song traditions allows for a campy yet sincere approach that treats love as performance, artifice, and genuine emotion simultaneously. Songs like "Papa Was a Rodeo"—with its chorus *"Papa was a rodeo, Mama was a rock'n'roll band"*—queer the American roots mythology while delivering genuine emotional wallop. --- ## Music: Genre as Collage **Stylistic Range**: The album is a deliberate museum of pop history, touching chamber folk, fuzzy indie rock, synth-pop, country, punk, and experimental music. As one critic noted, "Merritt excels at what you might call 'high-concept Erasure songs'—sprightly, fizzy synthpop with elaborate lyrical conceits" . Tracks like "Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long" feature "perky synthesizer basslines" , while "I Don't Believe in the Sun" showcases Merritt's "forlorn dolor of his baritone" . **Structural Economy**: Most songs clock in under two minutes—"the time it takes to smoke a cigarette" . This brevity serves the conceptual framework: these are love songs *about* love songs, fragments that acknowledge their own fragmentary nature. When songs do stretch longer (like "Papa Was a Rodeo"), the extended duration feels earned. **Vocal Variety**: Merritt shares lead vocals with four other singers (Shirley Simms, Dudley Klute, Claudia Gonson, and LD Beghtol), creating a theatrical revue atmosphere. Simms' "bright indie voice expressed a crisp sadness where Merritt's is sodden" , providing essential textural contrast across the marathon runtime. --- ## Production: Intentional Lo-Fi Aesthetic **The "Chintzy" Sound**: The production deliberately embraces cheap keyboards, drum machines, and sparse arrangements. As Merritt's live band demonstrated in 2025, "the keyboards and drums sounded chintzy in 1999 too. That was the point" . This isn't lo-fi out of necessity but as aesthetic choice—artificiality matching the album's thematic concerns. **Instrumental Palette**: The dominant textures include "ostinatos and arpeggios, chords broken into their constituent parts, like lonely people, repeating incessantly like love" . Sam Davol's cello provides melodic bass lines, while Chris Ewen handles synth programming and electronic textures. The electric guitars are "echoey, doomy, urban, in the style of the Jesus and Mary Chain" , referencing Phil Spector's girl group productions through a post-punk lens. **Minimalist Maximalism**: Despite the three-hour length, the production remains deliberately restrained. There's no studio bloat—each song is a discrete unit, economically arranged to serve its specific genre exercise. --- ## Themes: Love as Linguistic Construct **The Semiotics of Romance**: "The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure" explicitly names the album's theoretical concerns. Merritt murders the father of structuralism in the name of Motown songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland, suggesting that we know nothing about love itself, only about how love has been constructed through songs . **Love's Inadequacy**: The album catalogues love's failures: "A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off" (being unlovable), "I Think I Need a New Heart" (emotional malfunction), "Yeah! Oh, Yeah!" (domestic murder). Even "The Book of Love"—the album's most sincere moment—admits the form is "long and boring" and "full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes / And things we're all too young to know" . **Urban and Animal Metaphors**: Merritt organizes his chaos through recurring motifs. "Everything is either a city or an animal," he quipped in 2025 . From "Reno Dakota" to "Come Back from San Francisco" to "Washington D.C.," geography becomes emotional shorthand. Animals appear as symbols of ungovernable desire ("Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long") or romantic fatalism. --- ## Influence and Legacy **Immediate Impact**: The album transformed The Magnetic Fields from indie cult act to recognized masters. It spawned a *33 1/3* book by collaborator LD Beghtol, fan sites, and countless critical reassessments . Subsequent albums (*i*, *Distortion*, *Realism*, *Love at the Bottom of the Sea*) all charted on the Billboard 200 . **Cultural Permeation**: "The Book of Love" has become a modern standard, covered by Peter Gabriel (for the film *Shall We Dance?*), performed at weddings and funerals, and even sung by "seven-year-old girls on Danish talent contests" . What began as ironic commentary has become sincere ritual—a perfect demonstration of the album's thesis about the transformation of artifice into authentic feeling. **Artistic Descendants**: The album's influence extends to any indie artist treating genre as malleable material—Sufjan Stevens' state projects, The Decemberists' literary conceits, and countless "playlist generation" artists who view albums as curated collections rather than unified statements. --- ## Pros and Cons ### **Pros** | Strength | Evidence | |----------|----------| | **Unprecedented Scope** | Successfully executes 69 distinct songs without collapsing under its own weight; "the perfect indie rock masterwork, undercutting its claim on the monumental by embracing the fragmentary" | | **Consistent Quality** | Even "throwaway" tracks like "Punk Love" and "Experimental Love" serve the conceptual framework; "Are there duds on *69 Love Songs*? Probably, but I wouldn't want to lose them" | | **Literary Depth** | Lyrics reward close reading with layers of irony, sincerity, and intertextual reference | | **Emotional Range** | Moves seamlessly from genuine heartbreak ("I Don't Want to Get Over You") to absurdist humor ("Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long") to existential dread ("Papa Was a Rodeo") | | **Cultural Resonance** | Has aged into "an inexhaustible compendium of comforts for those who've loved, lost and lamented" | | **Democratic Accessibility** | Short songs and varied styles prevent monotony; "tailor-made for the attention span of millennials" | ### **Cons** | Weakness | Evidence | |----------|----------| | **Exhausting Length** | "After 'The Book of Love' (track 16), the songs seem to get more and more inconsistent... sides 2 & 3 don't have the same immediacy" ; "the songs just blend together, making it background music" | | **Fragmented Flow** | Abrupt transitions between styles and singers can disrupt emotional investment; tracks like "How F\*\*\*\*g Romantic" and "Punk Love" "disrupt the flow of the album" | | **Uneven Distribution** | Merritt sings 45 of 69 songs; some listeners may prefer the variety provided by other vocalists | | **Deliberate Artifice** | The meta-conceptual framework may alienate listeners seeking unmediated emotional expression; "you can never be sure with him" regarding sincerity | | **Acquired Taste** | Merritt's "drolly melodramatic" delivery and "Camel baritone" require adjustment | | **Filler Necessity** | Some tracks exist primarily to serve the numerical concept (69 songs) rather than as standalone compositions | --- ## Conclusion *69 Love Songs* remains one of the most audacious achievements in indie rock history—a three-hour meditation on love's representation that manages to be simultaneously cynical and sincere, fragmented and cohesive, artificial and deeply moving. Its greatest strength is its embrace of inconsistency: by refusing to synthesize its competing styles and emotional registers into a unified statement, it mirrors love's own chaotic, contradictory nature. The album's central insight—that we can only know love through the songs we've inherited about it—has only grown more poignant in the streaming era, where "filler" tracks (once criticized) now provide essential shape to albums . Twenty-five years later, *69 Love Songs* stands not just as a collection of excellent songs, but as a profound investigation into how we sing about the unsingable.
Favorite Track: I Don't Want to Get Over You
I try to listen to each album on this list at least twice, which becomes a challenge with albums like this one, but I did it. As expected, there are great and not so great tunes over the course of three hours. This, of course, is the problem with a record like this. It is too damn long. An ambitious project to be sure, I just don’t think it works. As much as I liked some of the songs, I don’t think I’ll be returning to the album again.
10 songs in and yeah, I’m not listening to all that
Not terrible, but only listened to one disc. Not sitting through 3 hours of this.
Literally 69 songs, so it was a marathon to complete, but despite that, I didn't hate it. It gets a 3
Grusomt kjedelig. Tror ikke jeg har hørt noe kjedeligere enn dette. 69 sanger med gørr.
C’est bad J’ai pas été capable de finir. Je suis arrêté à la 6ieme chanson du disque 1
Couldn’t hack the whole thing. Most of the songs were horrible, but I respect the novelty of it.
I was really concerned about an album I didn't know featuring 69 songs. But it's going on the listen-again list so I can pay more attention to it.
Nice
Prolific but not memorable
I get it 100%… to make that many songs is really impressive. However I do think a lot of art benefits from being concise and only containing what needs to be there. But also the whole point of this project was to be a shit ton of songs. I’m gonna settle with a three
I guess this is considered music… someone sang the words from their diary and called it an album. Sounds like a 10 year old gave their diary to their dad and he sang it for him. And the dad let the kid make some of the beats.
I couldn’t listen to the whole album
Like if the smiths were guests stars on steven universe
I thought some of them were pretty good but there’s a lot of mid to bad ones and there’s also 69 which is just too much
He has a pretty unique sound and I can appreciate what this is but toooooo damn long
Usually I'm very against long albums but I kinda liked it this time. Reminds me of TMBG
interesting
No reason for this to be 3 hours.
This was so gruelling it actually affected my men’s mental health. This just feels like it exists for the sake of it, most of it just sounds like the first draft of a song that someone has written down and said ‘that will do’. So much ukulele. Inevitably some of the ideas are alright here but you’ve got to wade through so much rubbish it renders the whole thing unlistenable.
Non 3 HEURES PUTAIN
For those coming to this album fresh, for the first time, and for those confused about why anyone would want to listen to three straight hours of this, please give the 69 Love Songs a second, third, and fourth chance. This 1001 albums project is meant to give you a new album every day. If you keep up with this for years, as I have, sometimes you get in a slog, and listening to some albums feels more like work than a source of enjoyment. The longer the album, the less likely I generally am to be enthused about it. I imagine people see the three hour run time, hear the first few sentimental or goofy songs, and then jump to a negative conclusion. I’m of the tribe who already listens to these songs with extreme frequency. But, when I started listening to it a decade or so ago, I was initially baffled by it, and I was turned off by the audacity and supposed pompousness of the number of tracks. 69 in itself is a joke- how could anyone take it seriously? Certain songs stuck with me, though, and I continued to come back to disc one- roughly the first third of songs. Soon, I knew them backward and forward. What I initially saw as sentimentality morphed into real emotion when I returned for additional listens. I can hardly listen to these songs first handful of songs without bursting into tears these days, ham that I am. It was a slow warming process, but once I was on board with the 69 Love Songs, I was on board in a way that I never have been with any other album. Once I was sufficiently versed on disc one, I moved on to disc two and had the same warming experience over time. Then I was on to disc three. I never binged the whole thing and tried to keep unrelenting focus in one go. That’s not what this is about, not until you speak the language. For Valentine’s Day one year, I saw a set at a Cincinnati bar where different musicians worked their way through the whole thing in one evening, and I wasn’t the only one teary-eyed when they broke into what I think of as the real start of the album, I Don’t Believe in the Sun. These songs really mean something to people. I’ve never seen the same reaction at a random bar revolving around a set of songs that are almost thirty years old. So, I know I’m not alone. Later, I went to an event in New York where the now aged Magnetic Fields returned to perform the full album over three days. My only qualm was that it wasn’t long enough. More weeping people surrounded me. Happily weeping people. Now, yes, some of the songs are ridiculous. But that’s the fun of it. We jump through the gamut of different emotions that love evokes- joy, humor, and heartbreak. But more so, this is an album about love songs more than about love itself. Hence this is why the tracks also run the gamut of genre. You have a western ‘Poppa Was a Rodeo,’ a few Celtic jams, broadway, as well as a weird take on early punk ‘Punk Rock Love’ (which is maybe the worst song out of the bunch). The best songs are weighted toward the beginning, yes, but some greats are sprinkled all throughout. Give this the slow and steady chance it deserves, and I guarantee you’ll get more out of it than folks here on this site seem to be getting. These songs are worth keeping with you for life.
"The music here is pretty good." "I know, and in such large portions!" It's a very impressive feat that ultimately does overstay its welcome for me. Plenty of gems throughout this. But too long to connect with as fully as I wanted to.
I could write a dissertation on this album, but I'm not going to. This album changed my life. I learned how to play most of the songs on the first album by ear and experiment with different vocal styles. I would laugh, cry, and feel all of the emotions Stephin Merritt would attempt to convey in this effort. He knew it was insane to write this, and yet, as ambitious as it is, so much feels unsaid. Love is so many things: fun, pretty, tragic, heartbreaking, sexy, ugly, mundane, profound, and anything else you can make of it. As he sings in "The Book of Love": "The book of love is long and boring No one can lift the damn thing It's full of charts and facts, and figures And instructions for dancing But I I love it when you read to me. And you You can read me anything" What more is there to say? The band is solid, the lyrics and melodies are diverse, from the fun to the cheeky, from the self-deprecating to mourning, and every time I revisit it, I discover so many nuances and qualities (especially as I get older). I wonder if Merritt does as well? So, thank you, Merritt, for getting me in touch with my sensitive side with this album, and letting me learn to love (and also love and lose). Please take care of yourself if you're reading this. We all need love and something or someone to love in our lives.
Indie pop, indie folk, synth-pop, chamber pop, art pop, experimental pop, alternative country, twee pop.
This is kind of a tough one to rate. First off, I actually really liked some of the songwriting here. Some of the lyrics and concepts are very well written and unique. The breadth of musical influence on this record is also very entertaining. I do feel like a quality producer would have cut this down into two really good albums and cut the album-worth of subpar material. Overall, because it’s hard to listen to 3 hours of music as a unified piece of art, I have to go with a 3.5/5 but round down.
4/10
I am on song 40 while writing this. I just... Don't understand why this is a thing, there have been some actual good songs but holy hell are some of these (like Papa Was a Rodeo) fucking hideous. Ok I have finished the album now. Could have been a 2 or 3 if it was 1/3 of the length and didn't focus on the 69 songs gimmick where most of them are pure garbage. It's just way too long and drawn out, why was this ever picked for this list I can not imagine, but from now on keep it far away from me.
This was heading for a 2, and then I got to "I Shatter", and it finally found its way to a 1. This album is 69 "songs" vaguely related to a theme of "love". They're clearly supposed to be funny, but they aren't. They attempt parody, but fail miserably. The vocals are mostly pretty bad, the lyrics are tedious and repetitive, the music is tedious and repetitive. The album is 3 hours long, and contains maybe 10 minutes worth of music I might choose to listen to. It was an obvious attempt to gain fame/notoriety by producing a gimmicky album... and I've never heard of them, so it obviously wasn't that successful. Not only that, but they obviously tried to do it again! Considering their discography lists a "50 song memoir" that is, you guessed it, 50 songs long! Pretentious tripe.
69 love songs? oh it's 69 love songs that's funny IT'S 3 HOURS no longer funny I think this might be the best evidence that we should have stuck to vinyl. Letting people be this self indulgent on the cheap is a mistake. He wanted to release 100 of these mediocre songs!! 100!!!!! there's HOW LONG left? The fact that the first song is "Absolutely cuckoo" and the last song is "Zebra" I wonder if he originally had 26 songs with an A-Z of love of sorts. That could have been cute. there's HOW LONG left?? "Love is like jazz" is exactly what I hated about jazz for a while. After that it's been one big pile of mush I'm only halfway through.. This is the only album that has made me question why I was doing this project in the first place, I swear I've heard this song before Experimental music love has officially annoyed me. I like experimental music don't make fun of it I can't rate this anything but a 1.
acredite se quiser, mas eu fiz uma roadtrip de 3h com esse tocando do inicio ao fim!!! foi uma experiencia incrivel eu tava estranhando um pouco a sonoridade do magnetic fields mas depois gostei d+ fora as 3h de album, eu gosto demais do conceito que foi proposto nesse tá é o único mto longo que vai ganhar 5 estrelas por aqui
O SEGUNDO MAIS LONGO DA LISTA, graças a deus é uma PEDRADA puta merda!!!!!! queria mto saber dirigir pra pegar estrada e botar esse torando. parece um bom album pruma roadtrip maluca de 3h. bom, separei em 3 dias, 1 horinha pra cada dia. e funcionou demais. não enjoei, na vdd até fiquei querendo ouvir mais. indie pop de ALTÍSSIMA qualidade, bão pra carai. não curto mto as musicas mto eletronicas, mas são longe de serem ruins!! apesar de longo, acho que vale a pena ser escutado. é um marco pro indie rock e eh bem bacana ver o tema amor sendo explorado de 69 maneiras diferentes. bão demais!!!!!!!!
I can't give it a 5 because it's obviously all over the place but some of my favorite songs are on this - you could cut it to an incredible 12-15 song album no problem
For those of you questioning the time commitment for this album, just put it on, it'll have you hooked. So many styles, tones and approaches to the topic of love. Essential in its breadth, scope, grandeur and sheer likeability.
I don't think you're actually supposed to listen to all of this, the whole album comes off as an ironic joke and by the time you're at Love is a Jazz song -done in the most ridiculous over the top caricature of jazz style - it should be blazingly obvious Magnetic Fields is just fucking with everyone.
Bijna drie uur muziek, waar moet je dan op letten? Je zet het op, gaat er wat anders bij doen, en je merkt wel of iets opvalt tussen de 69 muziekstukken. Er wordt lollig gemusiceerd, het heeft iets losjes, folky, af en toe experimenteel of ironisch, de Nick Cave-imitaties zijn niet van de lucht. Heren en dames wisselen elkaar af, weinig beklijft maar het is zeker ook geen straf om dit op te hebben. Waarom staat dit in de lijst? Als ik 69 liefdesliedjes had geschreven, koos ik er de 12 beste uit, zodat ik een écht goed album had. En de overige 57, daar kun je dan altijd nog wat bonustracks uit strooien of er een concept-album uit samenstellen. Maar nee, we zijn eigenwijs, het publiek krijgt de hele bende ongefilterd voor z'n plaat. Of ga je me vertellen dat ze nog veel méér hadden geschreven, en dat dit de selectie is?
Nou, ik ben er doorheen hoor. Het heeft mij 5 dagen gekost. Maar ach, dan heb je ook je grapje met 69 nummers gemaakt. Die 69 nummers bekijken de liefde met nogal wat ironie. Er is blijkbaar iemand bij het boek die dat heel grappig vindt. Of zal er ook nog een muzikale reden zijn? Op zich is er muzikale variatie en creativiteit. Maar dat lijkt mij toch niet de reden om dit op te nemen in de lijst. Even lezen maar. En ja: nadat het boek vrolijk meegaat in de humor van het album, lees ik warempel muzikale motivatie. In mijn eigen woorden: niet alleen de tekst is ironisch, de muziek is dat ook. Telkens bieden de nummers jouw de aansluiting bij de standaard liefdesliedjes klanken, maar telkens wordt je daar weer vandaan getrokken. Nou vooruit... Het is allemaal origineel, en elk element is het concept in getrokken. Zeker. Maar uiteindelijk zal ik me dit herinneren als één langdradige grap.
Eigenaardige verzameling tracks, waarbij een mengeling van stijlen voorbijkomt. Ik vraag me sterk af of ik dit serieus moet nemen, want ondanks dat ik niet naar de teksten luister, komen er af en toe wat schijtlolligheden voorbij volgens mij. Sowieso, het hele idee om 69 liedjes op een driedubbelaar te knikkeren, dan doe je het ergens om. Of het nu is om de luisteraar te pesten of om te kijken hoe ver de platenmaatschappij bereid is te gaan. Het is hem in ieder geval gelukt om de boel uit te brengen. En niet zonder succes schijnbaar. Maar om deze schijtlolligheid nu op te nemen in een boek van albums die je ooit gehoord moet hebben, vind ik zeer dubieus. Ik heb het wel helemaal uit kunnen luisteren en afgezien van een koffie- en een lunchpauze, ook in 1 soort van lange zit. Maar meer dan 2 sterren gaan we hier natuurlijk niet van maken, want ik voel me totaal niet serieus genomen door de maker van dit album.
It's just too many songs. I get the whole concept of the album, but it's just too self-indulgent and not interesting enough. I am sure that an edited down album would be better, but this is not that.
The sounds of lo fi indie... all of them. Surprisingly stellar for 69 songs.
will come back and update this eventually
Rock pop ABBA vibe
Twangy, alt rock with good vocals
Really liked this - with the obvious caveat that I didn’t listen to it all. Variation on a theme but lots of variation. Ambitious. Engaging lyrics. Wish I’d explored them earlier as had Papa Was A Rodeo on one of my playlists for years. Will need to listen to it all at some point. 4 doesn’t seem right when I gave RHCP 2. This is much more than twice as good.
Phew! Made it. All i need to do is listen to it twice more and I'll be qualified to have an opinion on it (not going to happen) I enjoyed the challenge to be honest and you have to admire the sheer scale of the thing...that alone makes me think it's deserving of a place on the list. Some of the tracks were even good (I Think I Need A New Heart, Boa Constrictor, It's A Crime amongst others , some were poor approximations of stuff by other artists (John Grant, Belle and Sebastian, Tom Waits) and some were just show tunes.
More than half way through so probably sufficient to rate it.. I like it, overall, something of the multi instrumentation of Sufjan (love all the ukelele) but without quite hitting his heights of musicality. Fav so far,: The Things We Did and Didnt Do - see, I did make it to at least the end of Disc 1...
I cannot give this any more than a 1 star review for the hubris and the sheer self-indulgence required to assume that I am going to commit to listening to 69 songs over nearly 3 hours. This holds exceptionally true when the first half dozen or so songs prove to be bang average. What an awful selection for this list. No more needs to be said.
Novelty records don't belong on this list in my view. And this is very much a novelty. And the songs arn't very good either. I got part way through and, like so many other people, gave up. The music just wasn't interesting enough. Musically it might be a 2, but the sheer ridiculousness of it makes it a 1
I ain’t listening to 3 hours of this again. I didn’t vibe with it on my last and hopefully only listen and I’m not willing to sacrifice another 3 hours to see it my opinion has changed. Life’s too short.
Terrible awful boring total unnecessary album
Belle découverte, je connaissais pas! Un album trop long, aucune chance que j’écoute les 2h52! Mais le premier album était plein de surprise, messemble que ça se suivait pas? J’ai pas compris le style de l’artiste mais y’avait de bonnes chansons quand même! Note de 3 pour le manque de cohérence mais l’originalité de l’album Mes préférés; absolutely cuckoo, all my little word (avec le violoncelle à la fin, sorti de nul part mais cool),
AMBITIEUX. Vraiment visionnaire de faire un album "d'amour" qui s'appelle "69 Love Songs" et contient 69 chansons. Des précurseurs de l'humour des temps modernes. Je leur lève mon fedora. CEPENDANT, gros manque de cohésion. J'apprécie de la variété dans un album, mais là c'était vraiment trop décousu. Prise une par une, je dirais pas que les chansons sont pas désastreuses, mais le fait que je me sois quasi tapé l'album d'un coup a pas aidé. J'avais tellement, mais tellement hâte que ça finisse. PAR CONTRE, il y avait une chanson que j'ai un peu plus appréciée parce que je la connaissais déjà et ça m'a permis de relativement viber durant un temps. POUR CETTE RAISON, je donne la note de 2 étoiles. Merci quand même à Magnetic Fields d'avoir agrémenté ma ride Qc-St-Ours, je vais m'en souvenir. Chanson préférée : The Book of Love Mention honorable : Fido, Your Leash is Too Long. Après mon court regain d'énergie et de bonheur avec The Book of Love, Fido s'est assuré de me rappeler que j'appréciais pas particulièrement mon écoute et que j'étais à un coup de volant de ne plus jamais entendre de la musique aussi gossante.
it’s a big fat no from me dawg j’avais l’impression d’être dans un burger joint ouvert par un millennial qui charge 45$ pour un burger d’orignal servi sur une planche de bois some of these are genuinely the worst songs i've ever heard, mais honnêtement pour pas juste chialer ils sont vraiment en avance sur leur temps parce que je pensais vraiment écouter de la musique indie des années 2010 donc en ce sens this is fr some true visionary shit je tiens aussi à préciser que certaines tounes sont vraiment pas si pires, mais celles que j’ai pas aimé, je les ai tellement détesté que ça a jeté de l’ombre sur tout le reste. and the runtime just pissed me tf off. also how are you going to spend all this time and energy writing and performing 69 songs (HAHAHA!) but have this fugly ass cover quelques points positifs : m'a fait encore plus apprécier la musique que j'écoute habituellement. avec le recul, j’ai même le goût d’augmenter la note de Toys in the Attic et de Play. je pense pas qu'il va y avoir pire album pour moi parmi les mille quelque restants donc le pire est passé and that's a win in my book. le fait que je me sois tapé les trois heures est également un gage de ma ténacité et de mon courage chanson préférée : Epitaph for my Heart (la seule que j'ai aimé) mention honorable : moi qui était legit su’l bord de brailler en écoutant Reno Dakota tellement c’est venu uncover de la rage que je savais même pas que j'avais ; le fou rire que j’ai eu quand je faisais la vaisselle et que How Fucking Romantic a commencé. I Shatter et Love Is Like Jazz m'ont fucking fait rire aussi P.S. je comprends que c’est censé être tongue-in-cheek comme album, mais ça change rien à mon expérience atroce. peut-être à revisiter quand je vais être de meilleure humeur
I did actually listen to all 69 songs. This is an extremely impressive album. Writing is great, every song has a unique character and instrumentation despite nearly all of it performed by Merritt. I don’t love his voice, especially when he pushes the low register on a LOT of the songs, but the longer the album the more and more I was impressed by the sheer magnitude of the project. Nice.
i'll be honest, I've been putting off rating this one for a while. not because i don't enjoy it, but because of the sheer length. i've gotten through it in the past though, this will be my 3rd or 4th time overall (to anyone who might come across this: i'm so sorry in advance for how long this rating is gonna be) Absolutely Cuckoo - 3/5 I Don’t Believe in the Sun - 5/5 All My Little Words - 5/5 A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off - 5/5 Reno Dakota - 3/5 I Don’t Want to Get Over You - 5/5 Come Back from San Francisco - 4/5 The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side - 4/5 Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits - 2/5 The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be - 4/5 I Think I Need a New Heart - 5/5 The Book of Love - 5/5 Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long - 4/5 How Fucking Romantic - no rating The One You Really Love - 4/5 Punk Love - no rating Parades Go By - 4/5 Boa Constrictor - 4/5 A Pretty Girl Is Like... - 3/5 My Sentimental Music - 3/5 Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing - 5/5 Sweet-Lovin’ Man - 5/5 The Things We Did and Didn’t Do - 4/5 Roses - no rating Love Is Like Jazz - 1/5 When My Boy Walks Down the Street - 5/5 Time Enough for Rocking When We're Old - 3/5 Very Funny - 4/5 Grand Canyon - 4/5 No One Will Ever Love You - 5/5 If You Don't Cry - 4/5 You're My Only Home - 4/5 (Crazy for You But) Not That Crazy - 5/5 My Only Friend - 3/5 Promises of Eternity - 3/5 World Love - 4/5 Washington, D.C. - 5/5 Long-Forgotten Fairytale - 4/5 Kiss Me Like You Mean It - 4/5 Papa Was a Rodeo - 5/5 Epitaph for My Heart - 5/5 Asleep and Dreaming - 3/5 The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Crazy - 5/5 The Way You Say Good-Night - 4/5 Abigail, Belle of Kilronan - 3/5 I Shatter - 4/5 Underwear - 4/5 It’s a Crime - 4/5 Busby Berkeley Dreams - 3/5 I’m Sorry I Love You - 4/5 Acoustic Guitar - 5/5 The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure - 4/5 Love in the Shadows - 3/5 Bitter Tears - 4/5 Wi’ Nae Wee Bairn Ye’ll Me Beget - 2/5 Yeah! Oh, Yeah! - 5/5 Experimental Music Love - no rating Meaningless - 4/5 Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin - 3/5 Queen of Savages - 4/5 Blue You - 3/5 I Can’t Touch You Anymore - 4/5 Two Kinds of People - 2/5 How to Say Goodbye - 4/5 The Night You Can't Remember - 3/5 For We Are the King of the Boudoir - 2/5 Strange Eyes - 4/5 Xylophone Track - 3/5 Zebra - 3/5 Average score: 3.9/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ definitely not my fav Magnetic Fields release (i prefer Get Lost and Holiday, idk if they made the 1001 albums list or not). still, it's a nice album with it's own charm, even if it is long af this can truly be some depressing music. good thing i'm part of the demographic that loves to torture themselves with sad music from time to time. i can understand why this wouldn't be most people's cup of tea though
2 sterne
Very melodious! I love it.
Had to pause the generator for a week to get through this.
Will slowly listen to this album. There's a lot (69, shweet).
Podría ser un disco genial, pero es DEMASIADO. 69 canciones es DEMASIADO. Casi tres horas de duración, es DEMASIADO. Me gustaron varias canciones, pero siento que los propios Magnetic Fields se dispararon solos en el pie haciendo un album de esta longitud. La verdad, aunque me gustó, terminé por no querer volverlos a escuchar nunca.
Demasiado extenso
Fav- I don’t wanna get over you 4/5
Album is enjoyable, but three hours? That is quite cumbersome for an album of the day. Not a producer, but this album would have been better off as multiple albums. The only problem with that is the album would not longer be 69.
Si alguien a estas alturas de historia puede escuchar 69 canciones de pop ochentero merece todos mis respetos. Yo a la tercera ya me cansé. No está mal, pero es muy pesado.
Absolutely not.... 3 hours?
It's so long. 2.5
This is insane. 3 hours of some of the most random music I’ve ever heard. I think I zoned out somewhere mid disc one so don’t ask me anything about it. (69 songs, 172 mins)
This is a joke, right?
The makers of this list are trying to bore me to death. There's nothing of note here, and there are much better examples of indie music that don't require you to listen to 69 songs to finish the album. Some of the "songs" barely meet a minute long. Let's be so fr.
Skjer ikke
i really liked this, it stood really consistently through it all
Dit is uiteraard een project waar ik van op de hoogte ben, maar los van de 'hits' vond ik het een berg waar ik geen heil in zag en hem nooit helemaal beklommen ben. Dat is nu ook weer niet gelukt, en ik ben bij het tweede trekkershutje weer afwaarts gegaan. Het is op het oog een uitzonderlijk ambitieus album, maar als je vervolgens hoort hoe lackluster een stuk of 50 songs in elkaar steken, dan is het nauwelijks op z'n plaats om er een stempel 'ambitieus' op te drukken. Daar verwacht je toch wel een bepaalde gedrevenheid en creativiteit bij, wat ik gewoon mis over de gehele lengte. Ik snap dat het de monotone (lees: saaie) indie stijl is van The Magnetic Fields, maar ik vroeg me wel af of ze zelf ook niet halverwege het project dachten: 'waar zijn we aan begonnen? Ik wil niet meer. Was ik maar een barista in SoHo.' Zo voelt het in ieder geval wel. Het was elke keer een verademing als de vrouwelijk lead de microfoon overnam, want vooral die guy was echt onuitstaanbaar op een gegeven moment. Het is voor een groot deel gewoon pretentieuze, corny, stoffige meuk, en als dit is wat liefde is dan wil ik dat dat lot mij nooit gaat treffen. 5/10 Highlights: A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off Vast nog wel een paar lichtpuntjes maar ik was overdonderd door middelmaat
Wtf is dit voor een concept. Om te laten zien hoe goed je liefdesliedjes kan schrijven dan maar gewoon teringveel tegelijk uitbrengen. En stoppen op 69, haha seksgrapje wat ontzettend leuk zeg. Het is verleidelijk om deze plaat al te haten voordat je één noot gehoord hebt. Maar gelukkig heb ik het wel een kans gegeven en heb ik twee van de drie cd's uitgeluisterd. In vlagen realiseer wilde ik het afzetten of was ik juist weer hooked. Ergens in het begin van CD 2 zit een serie ijzersterke songs. Zeker waar hij een beetje klinkt als Phosphorescent of Midlake (toch twee zeroes indiefolk iconen) sla ik het ene na het andere nummer op. Maar dan even later (middenin I Shatter) wil ik hem toch maar al te graag weer afzetten. Eigenlijk komt het op het volgende neer: als de beste man niet zo'n idioot was geweest om perse 69 nummers op een album te zetten maar gewoon de 12 beste had gekozen, dan hadden we hier een prachtige indieplaar gehad. Maar hij vertikte het. 7/10 - vanwege de pareltjes die her en der op de platen staan Highlights Book of Love When My Boy Walks Down the Street Grand Canyon Long-Forgotten Fairytale
I don't hate it because it's long, I hate it because it's annoying.
Aggressively bad at some points (punk love, jazz something) too long for sure. The vocals are annoying on some (maybe all) tracks. It's way too long. The book of love is the only song I know from the cover by some guy( not Peter Gabriel) and I always skip the song. I havent even finished the album yet, I will, but it is just so blegh. The music is also all over the place and mostly not noteworthy or bad. I was convinced I had heard a song already halfway the album... I can keep going about the things I dislike but will stop to not make the review too long, something this band should have done
I've gone through this album before and boy is it a long one. Stephen Merritt is a really impressive artist. He's been in several musical projects including The Magnetic Fields, Future Bible Heroes, The Gothic Archies, and The 6ths. He's said in an interview with my local radio station that he likes albums like the sort that Frank Sinatra puts out with titles that explain what all the songs are. He likes to know what's going to happen for the second half hour to hour. He sees himself as doing the same thing, but he'll do parodies of it. He says he rarely has any idea what he's doing. Some songs, like "Punk Love" and "Plant White Roses", he has written in less time that it takes to sing them. Other songs, like "Ethan Frome" and "At the Pyramid" have taken 30 years to write. It's interesting how differing his process has been for different artists. This album isn't just about the usual form of love, the lovely, heartwrenching kind. It is rather all form of love, including the kind that isn't really love and is just a husband murdering his wife. It's said that while sitting in a gay bar, inspiration struck him to create 100 songs introducing himself to the world. That number soon turned to 69 as a much lower, more manageable one. He decided he'd have a revue with four drag queens and whichever songs they liked best, would make it onto the album. I think there is beauty in the fact of something being brief like these songs. Brief things don't take excessive time explaining things in extraneous detail, they just let what they are speak for themselves. The fact that there's so many complex, fun, beautiful songs on this album is crazy. I think I like all the songs honestly. I like the idea of the process of writing just a ton of songs. This certainly is a concept album, but a different kind than usual. My favorites are as follows: -A chicken with its head cut off -the luckiest guy on the lower east side -i think i need a new heart -the book of love -nothing matters when we're dancing -papa was a rodeo -yeah! oh yeah! -washington dc
FFS. The length of this thing. I got to track 31. And it's nice. But man, the length!
This is a lot. Some high points, but man it was a slog.
Nice. Besides, I understand. This album is anything but conventional, so it would be unfair to judge it by conventional standards. It literally consists of 69 little songs about love. Musically speaking, it's like throwing buckets of slightly different shades of paint onto a canvas. You can hardly expect a Renaissance painting to emerge by chance, but as long as you view it as art, you will find little spots that you can appreciate....
I listened to 5 tracks and couldn't force myself to sit through another 64 SONGS(!). There might be some decent tunes hidden in all this slop, but I'm not about to subject myself to 3 solid hours of listening to some uppity theater kid's vanity project. This isn't an album; it's a boxed set collection. It gets disqualified for sheer quantity of songs alone. 1 star.
I'd heard about this one before, but I was quietly intimidated by the 2 hours... gotta be honest about that. I like the general idea,an album of love songs exploring the many faces of it. I mean, come on, it's literally the feeling that gets explored most in music. But lyrically? Quietly surprising. I wasn't expecting it to be this good. Let's be real: holding 2 hours of anything is complicated. If I listen again, and I will,I'll divide it up, pay more attention piece by piece. Because it can get overwhelming all at once. This one needs another listen. In pieces. With focus and time. I Respect the ambition, surprised by the lyrics, overwhelmed by the length.
J'ai globalement bien aimé. Franchement, il mérite pas vraiment sa note de 2,85; tout l'album est plutôt bien produit, les mélodies restent en tête et l'album est littéralement ce à quoi tu t'attends donc les attentes sont à mon sens indéniablement respectées. Néanmoins, le problème principal quant à l'album, c'est vraiment le concept en lui même. L'idée de faire 69 sons pour faire 69 sons se ressent vraiment avec une energie recyclée et vraiment redondante vers la fin du projet, et puis c'est beaucoup trop long. En résumé, ça remplit bien les attentes mais en tant que projet je ne peux pas lui mettre autre chose que 3
Honestly, if this was just the one disc this would be a solid 2 or 3 stars. There is some interesting stuff in the first disc. Then you realize you have 2 more full LP's to sit through. The idea is interesting but it wears on you after you realize they put all the good ingredients at the front of the sandwich and all your left with at the end is some mayo soaked bread. 1/5
Pros: - Emotional - Usually good instrumentals - Some lyricism scattered around Cons: - Too bloated - Some half-baked songs Rating (out of 10): 7/10
It sounds like they forgot to adjust the equalizer on this album. It’s just a crash of highs with any sense of bass drowned out by the “ring” of the highs. This sounds like a poor attempt at sounding like Evan Dando. It’s also lyrically weak. I’m assuming this is a British band. I’m not checking. I’m guessing this is supposed to flourish in the “weird music “ category. The funny thing is, is musically this album would and could be better. The vocals are weak and just as weak as the lyrics. That’s huge. It’s one thing to have this push the boundaries album where you can sacrifice lyrics and vocals. It’s another thing to just sort of bore the listener into skipping song after song. This isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s just so easily forgettable. Choice cut: A Chicken with its Head Cut Off
Not fun. Mid.
So, I have some thoughts on this album. The first and loudest of those thoughts is that you shouldn't put a track on an album just to have one more song on it, you should put it on there because you think it is good and you are proud of it. Some of these tracks - maybe even most of these tracks - feel like filler just to hit that 69 song count. I think that I would actually rank this album higher if it cut out the weaker tracks and was only a half-hour or so long. And to top that off, a lot of the better tracks feel a little too short and underdeveloped. On the other hand, I do think that the Magnetic Fields did a good job with the variety of musical styles on this album. Sure, everything falls under that same general pop/rock umbrella, but there is an interesting variety of sounds, and many tracks incorporate elements of past music genres in a way that is fitting for the album's concept. I think that the variety of vocalists work to the album's merit, and the order that the tracks were put in works pretty well at keeping things interesting. Overall, I think this album is interesting for its ambition, but it falls short of the heights it is reaching for and feels like a gimmick and a curiosity as opposed to an essential listen. Favorite tracks: Fittingly for this album, there were a few that I liked about the same amount. "Parades Go By," "Promises of Eternity," "Long-Forgotten Fairytale," and "Strange Eyes" were all pretty interesting, and I enjoyed them. But I think the winner for me is "The Book of Love," which isn't that far off from my feelings about this album.
TOO. MANY. SONGS. and none of them were good.
Really good album. Not sure about 3 discs worth of music, but at least disc one is incredible.
This album is in my humble opinion in its own league. Aprox. 3 hours of entertainment. I could go on and on trying to describe its vast span of genres and qualities but listening for yourself is worth so much more.
What an achievement. Only truly love a handful of songs but easy 5 stars.
Fuck off
There's probably a decent 12-song album in here, but unfortunately the majority of the record sounds like a series of half-formed sketches and twee nonsense that make the juice of the occasional highlight not really worth the effort of the squeeze.
This is virtuosic. So extensive yet so slight, so insincere/cynical yet for real and begotten from hearts that feel, 69 Love Songs is unlike anything before or since. I mean, Stephin Merritt is sorta an American Morrissey, but not all literary depressives are made the same, and The Magnetic Fields frontman has his own reasons for being an unbelieving and ornery curmudgeon. +, it isn't like there's no joy here - there's plenty and it's infectious. It's no easy task to pick out a favorite line, but here's one: 'We don't have to be stars exploding in the night, or electric eels under the covers / We don't have to be anything quite so unreal, let's just be lovers.' And if you think it's simply too long, you could just listen to one disc at a time. It really isn't that hard.
Listened to Disc 1. Not bad, not great, it's got decent lyrics but no way am I listening to another 2 discs of this. 2.5/5. Raising to 3.
Started strong, but many of these songs were somewhat forgettable. Props for taking on such a big project. Did not listen to the whole thing
Really can’t stand this album
This is some theater kid shit. Some great songs from what I listened to but I just cannot possibly do 3 hours of it.
obsessed with the concept. but i'm gonna listen in three sections by disc, cause i don't really want to listen to 3hrs nonstop. i don't believe in the sun--"astronomy must be revised" iconic reno dakota--"pantone 292" (it's blue) these are all incredible. i am taking notes for future use. the cactus where your heart should be--is that a harpsichord? i think i need a new heart the book of love--oh my goodness this is so sweet i love it finished disc 1. notes: incredible. silly at times, serious at times, lovely throughout. incredible lyrics all around. instrumentation solidly complements the lyrical mood. overall impeccable. however, i am not taking individual listening notes on all 69 tracks. discs 2 & 3--presumably about 46 tracks--are for afternoon listening. phase ii starting off a little more experimental here. love is like jazz especially. when my boy walks down the street--YES YES YES this album feels like the quintessentially '90s counterpart to that quintessentially '90s angst in linkin park, et al. "oh i could write a song about the way you say goodnight" is the funniest lyric i shatter--i don't love it, but it is impressive deep robot voice vocals going on ok two discs in, and i'd put this in the mid 4 range. probably rounded to 5/5 because it has brought me much joy, but i'm not sure i'd call it a perfect 5/5. phase iii was even a bit more out there than phase ii, i think it's intentional. sadly xylophone track did not have a xylophone???? zebra was weird and funny. i stand by my assessment that it's a solid 4.5/5 rounded up.
Way too long, but I love Absolutely Cuckoo and did enjoy most of the other songs.
There were some good songs. If they'd made a shorter album with the best songs it could have been great. I'd have preferred "14 Love Songs" without the joke title.
How is this a great album? More like a mediocre box set. An album (LP) is no more than 50 min. Yes, there are double albums, but this is more than that. Not just that though, it's inconsistent. Maybe you could make a good album out of this if you whittled it down. I do like the Magnetic Fields, but calling this a great album is wrong. This is like a B-side compilation, if you are a fan you like it as a way to better know the band, but even you don't call it a great album!
This took me three days to get through. I couldn’t listen to it straight through. There are a few good songs. It should have been an album of ten songs and cut the other 59.
4.5/5
Your musicians were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should
Had to do this in 3 sittings. Even if you compressed the better songs into a single album this would have still been poor. I guess this is more a novelty album. Wasn't awful to give it a 1, but the lowest of 2's.
I admire the vision, but this was a giant mound of "meh"
Wonderful concept album. As you can imagine, with 69 songs some work and some don't. But by and large a really fun album.
I really liked this album. It is what a christmas compilation would sound like with a valentines theme. Four stars.
ascoltato non tutto ma quel poco fa capire che c’è potenziale
Ho sentito le prime due canzoni ma sembrava bello, voto falso
Pfff veel te lang en vrij saai
Never felt so much hate listening to love songs. Why 69? Why 3 hours and a half?
Wow. Silly, goofy, sad, fun, bad, …
Fun experiment album!
Its fine, I guess. I heard the lyric "The book of love is long and boring" while writing this. How fitting, though boring may be a bit harsh. 2.5/5.
I'm torn: On the one hand I love this record to bits, on the other hand I never want to listen to it again start to finish. It's good, it really is - but its a challenge every time.
Classic and always a great listen.
Wow. Incredible. Really nice album (or whatever you would call this at 69 short songs long). Also, 69 is a choice
An ok album nothing that needs to be a must listen. Just good music
So long omg. Still getting through it but liking it so far
5 / 5 for the quality and diversity of the tracks. -1 for being nearly three hours long. +1 for _absolutely_ committing to the bit. Literally something for everyone on here.
69 chansons putain !
69/69 songs listened. I rate this album a 41,4/69 rating.
Pretty neat :)
I can certainly respect the concept, and there's a few good songs on here, but there's just so damn much filler.
appreciate the reputation this has, but too long and convoluted for me
69 love songs is way too fucking many. This should’ve ended at like 10. A properly painful listen
Love songs, breakup songs, stalker songs, this album has it all. If it was a poetry book I would like it more. I never want to listen to it again, but it wasn’t as horrible as legend has is.
Oh wait, the album is actually 69 songs long? That's certainly a choice. Not surprisingly this is totally uninspired, but it has 69 in it, so it's EDGY uninspired music. Three hours of bad "love" songs is a bridge too far. Update: after listening to more of this I have this to add: what are these lyrics? I think they're going for the whimsical indie feel that was so popular in the late '90's and early '00's, but it just comes off as a bunch of self indulgent dorks sitting around thinking they're funnier than they really are. Kind of like a knock off Wes Anderson movie.
Here’s the thing about The Magnetic Fields: I love them, but they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. Sometimes the production of their songs is strange, some of their songs are actively bad, but all in all, I love their strange sound and I love Stephin Merritt’s dark sense of humor and one-of-a-kind perspective. 69 Love Songs is certainly what they are most well known for, an album that is really about love songs, rather than about love. Many of the songs on it are amazing. A few suck. I kind of think that’s part of the charm. Favorite tracks: “All My Little Words,” “I Don’t Want To Get Over You,” “The Book of Love,” “No One Will Ever Love You”
Album Review 063 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields (1999) Rating 1.5/5 No album that I’ve ever heard better sums up the phrase “quantity over quality”. I won’t be the first or last to think it but there are enough songs hidden away in here to distill into a half-decent 10-12 track album but it really, really isn’t worth the effort or commitment to listen to the full 273 minutes of 69 Love Songs to find them. The vast majority of the album is not good at best, unlistenable at worst, and so many of these songs are little more than the shell of an idea, here only to make up the numbers. If this were broken down to three double-albums, I doubt I’d rate any of them above 2/5 - as a single, drawn-out experience, it deserves less. Reading up on The Magnetic Fields, AllMusic.com mentions that their lead song-writer, Stephin Merritt, originally considered writing 100 songs for the album but he thought that might be too long and pared it down to 69 songs - I guess that’s at least something to celebrate.
I actually really loved this. It brought the only romance so far to my life this year. Now I only want to listen to love songs
Not yet managed to listen to all three hours, but I appreciated the concept and enjoyed listening
No doubt, the only thing ever conceived while sitting in a gay piano bar. -1 for the self-indulgent over-inclusion of c-side quality debris.
The heck is this
C'est impressionnant un album de 69 tounes. Mais pas autant impressionnant qu'un album de 35 minutes réparties sur 9 tounes excellentes. Il se cache sûrement un ep de quatre étoiles dans tout ça. 2.75 étoiles car je considère cette suggestion d'écoute comme un affront.
a very long listen. interesting...
Supongo que mi opinión (al menos de los que se han molestado en escucharlo entero) es que es un disco interesante con canciones bonitas, pero no termino de entender porqué sacar 69 de golpe. ¿No tienes criterio para elegir? ¿Eres tan bueno que tienes claro que todas merecen ser publicadas así de golpe? No sé y ya leeré para enterarme de esa historia si es que se sabe. La cuestión es que gracias a las listas de los más escuchado del disco puedes repasar lo que más le gusta a la gente y a partir de ahí tomar lo justo y lo mismo explorar de nuevo sus casi 3 horas. Me guardo The book of love, I don't want to get over you, All my little words.
Kinda like an art project rather than an album. I liked a lot of the songs but it’s very scattergun and felt a little smug
Sure, there are some lovely songs in here. There’s plenty of rubbish songs too. It’s just too long, I will never complain about a double album again
6/10
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.
The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing
I'm pretty sure if you release a three-hour album you're either a narcissist or have mental problems, and I am in two minds about this undertaking. It has such a sprawl that, despite fine quality, many of the songs feel undercooked (sometimes due to lack of percussion, sometimes due to them being snippets, sometimes pastiches). And yet I kept being impressed by the consistently good melodies. A strong core of songs amongst a clear quality hurdle for the rest, means the album doesn't succumb to gimmickry, in spite of it being something of a conceptual exercise (as are most of his albums thence it seems). The more I listened, the more I was impressed by the quality throughout. It has achieved something quite astonishing - a three hour, 69-song album that I did not find indulgent, and that I enjoyed more and more with each listen.
Don't believe your own hype kids
I don't actually know if I made it to the end of this one but the thought of going back to try and find out fills mw with dread so I'm gunna say good enough.
Quase 3 horas de álbum, comecei as 16h40 e só acabo depois das 20h. Mesmo assim, é 3/5. Não há uma música que possa dizer que não gostei. Ouvem se todas bem, umas são melhores que outras. Mas, por favor, que não apareça outro álbum com mais de 60 músicas ou com 3 horas.
I am docking a star for the ridiculous length of this album. May my wrath serve as a warning to other artists contemplating this sort of stunt.
I did it! All 2 hours and 52 minutes. Geez this is tough to rate. The songs are generally short which was a good thing. There were lots of good bits but you throw 3 hours away and there's going to be something that's decent. Rounding up to a 3 because it has "the book of love" which resulted in the much better Peter Gabriel cover
старина, ты молодец конечно, концепт выполнил на 5+ НО БЛЯТЬ 69 ПЕСЕН пососи мое яйцо правое пожалуйста
Not listening to all that
Boy, they were really committed to including 69 in the title. There are enough good songs here to make one really decent album, or a slightly patchy double, but at this length and with the throwaways that sound like someone improvising on TikTok, it’s bordering on an endurance test. That makes it hard to grade, but I'll go 3 for the good album that's fighting to get out.
Far too many songs for a single album to have a serious and considered listen through in the chaos of everyday life😆, however, have heard various parts (discs) at various times through the years, I like many of the tracks, other less polished sketches not so much, overall ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Oh boy. I mean, I get it. The whole premise is very ambitious and kinda brilliant. But the execution is subpar, and the outcome is this very bloated almost three hour ordeal with the most annoying music, infuriating production and unfinished songs sung by people who can't really sing. I guess it's not unexpected that I found the whole thing very grating on my nerves. I mean, alright, some tunes were kinda cute and some lyrics were kinda funny, but those cute and fun parts just drown in the sea of the most annoying music I have listened to lately. Had it been shorter, I would have given this 2 stars. Maybe even 3 for those rare flashes of brilliance and humour. But the whole album felt like 2 hours and 45 minutes of torture to me. My first 1 star rating.
Some filler. But nice mix
weird and beautiful and heartbreaking and rough around the edges and never, ever boring. even when that rough-sounding vocoder moment on i shatter hits. there’s an earnestness beyond the gimmick and i really connect with it. one of the first conversations i had with my now-boyfriend involved disclosing our respective top 5 songs from 69 love songs. big shoutout to all of the lovers out there.
Nice. I didn't get through all 69 songs, but sure feel loved afterwards.
What the hell.... I didn't think this would literally be 69 songs. 3 hours?? There better be some damn bangers if I'm gonna basically gonna sit and listen to a movie. NGL not interested from the first 10 songs and really don't want to force myself into 3 hours of whatever they wanted to make. respect but no thanks
It's very good and VERY LONG
Honestly, if you can make a three hour album with 69 songs and I don’t actually feel the urge to turn it off once, that’s a 5/5 in my book
Painful and sooo long!!
1 out of 5 Some songs weren't even too bad. I enjoyed it for a little while. But 1 star because this was 3 fucking albums. Holy hell I could not sit through 3.5 hours of this. Not cool.
I'll gladly be another outlier. 69 is a beautiful record that, to jump off of what another user pointed out, has a great blend of melancholy and joy that hits all the usual quirkiness of this project. It's also surprisingly varied and more organic than I was expecting. And yes, it's long, but you can easily listen in chunks.
This is a LOT. The music and production are pretty monotonous. The art-y concept of putting out 69 songs kinda moves them out of the mainstream and makes this a vanity project for hardcore fans. Those fans received it well and love the album. Critics also loved it because of the "artistic" value of it. But it's too much for a new or casual listener. I found it to be repetitive and monotonous and I don't see any situation where I'd revisit this.
There is no need for this to be nearly 3 hours long. I don't find anything about this enjoyable - voice, lyrics, or music, sorry.
I was kinda dreading this looking at the runtime but I enjoyed it throughout. There are some absolutely brilliant tracks on here. Yes there are some that don’t 100% hit the mark but there’s nothing terrible on it and with 69 songs they all can’t be absolute bangers.
Did we just throw these hastily together just to make the song count 69? There's some actual promise on this album with some cool sounding songs that kinda remind me of British New Wave albums, and then there's some real trash that seems like it was written in 15 minutes while sleep deprived. It's just too long for no purpose.
Rv
I get that you can’t have an album called “69 love songs” without a minimum of 69 songs but couldn’t they have made it 10-12 love songs instead? It’s not bad it’s just bloated and long.
Nogle af sangene er virkelig smukke, andre er for skramlede og uharmoniske for min smag.
It is as self-indulgent as marvelous. I would consider it an almost perfect album if it were a double album, but the listening experience does suffer from its long duration.
An album made by an artist who wants people to smell their farts
Umm the tracks I listened to had a few decent ones. But... ain't nobody got time for the rest if it didn't make a case for itself after the first 30 mins of listening
I made note of the songs that really grabbed me: ‘The Book Of Love’ ‘World Love’ ‘Long Forgotten Fairytale’ ‘Epitaph For My Heart’ ‘I’m Sorry For Your Love’ ‘The Death Of Ferdinand de Saussure’ ‘Yeah! Oh, Yeah!’ ‘Strange Eyes’ That’s only eight out of sixty-nine. ‘The Book Of Love’ is far and away the best song on the whole album and worth the price of admission alone. YMMV, but the rest of ‘69 Love Songs’ is largely (and somewhat unfortunately) a test of endurance rather than an enjoyable musical experience. It’s not without merit, and it should probably be praised for its ambition, but jeez it goes on and on. I admire what it’s trying to do far more than I enjoy actually sitting through it, which leaves me with very mixed feelings towards it overall.
Disc 2 was better than the others. Meh album
I guess with an album of so many tracks, most people can find a diamond or two in the rough, as I did. It's these one or two that keep this from getting a one-star rating. Mostly it was a sore test of endurance, and one that I certainly won't be repeating - even if I do love "Papa was a Rodeo".
Great baritone voice, clever lyrics. I’m about a third of the way through but will listen to this a few times. Fun!
I did listen to this once I think. It's long. A triple cd album. Cool lo-fi-ish songs Does so many songs make the good ones better or worse? After a couple of hours non-stop, conclusion it makes them worse. But it does win you back every once in a while. A for effort, C for consistency, B for pulling it off. 3.5 rounded up Heard before? Some Owned: Yes: 41/167 (24%) Will I get? No
I've never heard of Magnetic Fields before and I don't think I was missing anything. Anyway the album is from 1999 but sounds like it was from 1969, maybe that was the idea?! There's a mix of genres including Country 🤮, pop 🥱 and Pop Rock 🤨. It is not bad but it not amazing either.
3 hours for an album is just a bit silly really
An incredibly creative endeavor. Perhaps too long for me to really retain much of it. 6/10.
Wedding first and last dance songs, an album I’ve loved for years, and an excellent live show = easy 5!
Is it just me or is the second half of this (tracks 36-69) notably better than the first 35? Or was it just how/when I listened to them — the first half this morning and the second this afternoon? I was going to give this a 3 this morning but the afternoon was a 4 so I’m calling this a 3.5 and will round it up to 4. Generally I love the vibe throughout all this and while I overall would have preferred catchier melodies, there were very few clunker songs.
I know this is going to be a 4 or 5, the issue is I don’t get to disc 3 often enough to remember it with the perfect recall I have of discs 1 and 2. Disc 1: perfect, no skips, wouldn’t change a thing Disc 2: slightly more inconsistent but still contains some of my favs (I shatter, papa was a rodeo, you’re my only home, asleep and dreaming, epitaph for my heart), if this were a standalone disc I’d probably still give it a soft 5 Disc 3 would probably be a 3/4 borderline. I like underwear, acoustic guitar, ferdinand, gin, and zebra (“Zelda looks lonely” kills me every time), but I don’t think the rest are memorable. Still, even a 5 + 5 + 3 is a 4.33 average and I’m comfortable rounding up for how strong the first two discs are. The math doesn’t have to be perfect.
I’ve always hated this album: he can’t sing, his tunes are boring, and most so-called songs sound like a demo that he didn’t bother finishing
Kinda listened to it while I was half sleeping , which is appropriate
Lots of good songs on that album
Another album where the listening felt like a chore. Dull & cynical. Absolutely hated it.
I don't think this is best enjoyed as an album that one should listen to all at once. It's more a "pick and choose some" type of thing. Anyway, I respect its weird vibes and straightforward concept. Then again, I am an insufferable indie bitch.
Ain't nobody got time for this
Too many!!
There is a remarkable number of great songs here, especially for a 69-song album. If this was only a meager 50-song album, I’d have no problem giving it a 5. There are just a few too many tracks I felt could have been omitted. Best Track: All My Little Words
achei a letra das musicas bem engracadas, tem de tudo des de experimental instrumental ate uns ballads. eh 4 hrs de album entao demorei um pouco mas gostei all the way through
“A pretty girl is like a violent crime If you do it wrong you could do time But if you do it right it is sublime” A meaningful review of this is tricky almost entirely due to the vastness of the material and the breadth of the sound. It’s serious and quirky in equal measure but crucially is never taking itself too seriously nor is it ever childish or weird for weird’s sake. The whole record has a tremendous sense of humour (“A Pretty Girl Is Like” is absolutely hilarious). It is these moments of brevity that keep you going and, most importantly, interested through an utterly insane runtime. It’s impressive to be able to fill an album of 69 songs at all. The fact that I enjoyed so many of them is incredible. The ones I did not enjoy I am still glad I heard. Listening to “69 Love Songs” front to back is a mammoth task and not something I am likely to attempt again but I am grateful to have had the experience.
I listened to this album over one day during this past summer. Just a really fun listen overall. Not every song’s a masterpiece and there’s definitely some filler here and there but it’s a fun listen overall. It’s also just baffling that this guy just wrote 69 unique and distinct songs about love. Some are cute and some are pretty darn funny. Takes a while to get through, but a genuinely great experience to have at least once to hear it all.
DNF… very long and not that interesting. Got maybe an hour in figured I’d heard everything there is to hear. Not necessarily bad, just pretty meh. 2/5
"haha let's make a 69 song album cause that's FUNNY" "THAT'S FUNNY" why did the critcs think this was acceptable to be on the list??? whilst this isn't the longest one, it FEELS like the longest album on the list. there's a few... good tracks but again if ur making 69 tracks and there's not a single good one on there, you are doing SOMETHING wrong. good on me for one sitting this album at the first possible moment I could one sit this album...
You know, when you were a child, and you disliked how many love songs were on the radio, as the songs didn't connect to your life experiences. This album feels exactly how I felt as a child, but as an adult.
I’d never heard of The Magnetic Fields until this album came up. This was absolutely awful. Unbearable, obvious songs executed lamely and with seemingly no conviction or originality. God knows why this would be on any list. At three discs and close to three hours I knew this would be a chore. I gave it my best shot. For me, this couldn’t be anything other than a 1.
Cool idea but I am not listening to nearly 3 hours of this. I listened to roughly 30-40 minutes and that was enough.
++*: Xylophone Track ++: A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off, I Don't Want to Get Over You, Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits, The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be, The Book of Love, Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long, Punk Love, Nothing Matters When We're Dancing, The Things We Did and Didn't Do, When My Boy Walks Down the Street, Grand Canyon, (Crazy for You But) Not That Crazy, My Only Friend, World Love, Long-Forgotten Fairytale, Epitaph for My Heart, The Sun Goes Down and The World Goes Dancing, Abigail, Belle of Kilronan, I Shatter, Underwear, I'm Sorry I Love You, The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure, Love in the Shadows, Bitter Tears, Yeah! Oh, Yeah!, Experimental Music Love, Meaningless, Queen of the Savages, Strange Eyes +: Absolutely Cuckoo, All My Little Words, Come Back from San Francisco, I Think I Need a New Heart, How Fucking Romantic, The One You Really Love, Parades Go By, Sweet-Lovin' Man, Roses, Time Enough for Rocking When We're Old, If You Don't Cry, Promises of Eternity, Washington, D.C., Papa Was a Rodeo, Asleep and Dreaming, The Way You Say Good-Night, It's a Crime, Blue You, I Can't Touch You Anymore, Zebra +-: I Don't Believe in the Sun, Reno Dakota, Boa Constrictor, A Pretty Girl Is Like..., My Sentimental Melody, Very Funny, No One Will Ever Love You, You're My Only Home, Busby Berkeley Dreams, Acoustic Guitar, Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget, Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin, Two Kinds of People, How to Say Goodbye, The Night You Can't Remember, For We Are the King of the Boudoir -: The Luckiest Guy on the Lower Eastside, Love Is Like Jazz, Kiss Me Like You Mean It 7,9/10
This is the Magnetic Fields signature album
I hate to be critical about this, but it's too long. I think the concept is well executed, but at 3 hours of length it wears itself out.
Some of these are whitty, fun little tracks, acceptable little instances minimalism and sentimentalism. Most of these seem less developed and throughtout than children's songs sung around a fire pit at a camp with reluctant, post-juvenile, camp counselors that might have snuck in a few shots of cheap whiskey to help get through the sing-along portion of their duties. I don't understand why this triple album was included on this list. It was a drag to make it all the way through this album, and I may have been more forgiving if it didn't waste 3hr of my time, but alas now we'll never know.
I want to like the vocals as there aren't many baritones making music, so I'll count that as a positive even if they aren't as good as Matt Berninger (the guy from The National). These songs are decent and there's some variety, so points for that. I guess we should also award points for audacity... ...but also subtract points for throwing too much shit into a single compilation and calling it an album. Editing matters. Figuring out which songs shouldn't make the cut is a part of creating an album; it's unlikely that every song you ever write is going to be a winner. Double albums rarely work, and I'm not sure anything other than greatest hits collections can justify more than 2 discs. A judicious selection of these songs could probably get a 4, and picking 15 tracks at random would probably get a 3 as this generally isn't bad...but there aren't many great tracks on here, either. A shit ton of mediocrity wears on the listener after a while, so I feel like a 2 is appropriate here.
God, this is just so long. I like the Magnetic Fields but have never listened to a full album of theirs, and this was a doozy of a place to start. 3 hours is so much time to find to sit and listen to music on a Monday. There's a real range of songs here, some good and some not. I would love to hear a tighter version of this with all the filler for the sake of filler cut out. About halfway through the first 10 songs or so I was like "this sounds so much like the Gothic Archie's, I wonder if the lead singer did that project too..." And then I googled it and not only did he do The Gothic Archie's but Daniel Handler plays the accordion on this album 😂 It's a small musical world out there!
The Book of Love Busby Berkekley Dreams
Such an amazing album! So many great songs on here. The songwriting is excellent and the different styles and sounds they use here bring it to the next level. Are there some skips? Yes, but overall an amazing listening experience. Less points for how long it is. Top Songs: I Don't Believe in the Sun, Papa Was a Rodeo, All My Little Words, I Don't Want to Get Over You, Come Back From San Francisco
When presented with an album that is 69 songs long, it is easy to have already made one's mind up that it couldn't possibly be good enough to warrant all that. This album vastly overstays its welcome, though at times the genius of what the band set out to do shines on through. Unfortunately, intent alone is not enough to make an album good and no amount of sly smiles, winks, or nudges are enough to convince me that this album isn't a bit too indulgent. The execution isn't all that bad, most of the time, but I fear the idea itself is inherently flawed. Truth be told, this album sits neatly between 2 and 3 stars for me, but I'm giving it two because I just don't think the quality of the songs justify the runtime.
All Filler, No Killer! Yesterday's album was too long at 70 minutes. So, the generator decides today I should get a THREE HOUR LONG ALBUM. In fairness, I truly admire the time, effort, and testicular fortitude it took to make this. Stephin challenged himself and went for it! And, he succeeded! There's a lot of very catchy songs on here. The sense of humor is infectious. The variety of styles, voices, and arrangements keep this from being a boring listen. It becomes a game of "What's behind the NEXT door." I suppose that's why it's on this list. It's an oddity that just needs to be experienced. In its entirety. From beginning to end. ONCE. It's no elephant in the room that the three hour run time is the album's greatest weakness. Recording every song that enters your head is something every songwriter needs to do. Get that sucker on tape! But then, go back and do some editing. Cull a few, combine some others. Develop ideas. Work on arrangements. Mold the beast into a sharp KILLER album. This could totally have been that. Instead, editing is left up to the listener. It's mixtape time again. Which, honestly does have its own joy. This is the sort of collection that ends up on a "Super Deluxe" Box Set. It has the feel of a collection of rarites and outtakes. The fun stuff usually released at the end of a band's career. Kudos to these guys. They decided to record the whole box set upfront. Themselves. Isn't that just the "Indie" way? ;)
Long as hell. This one was tough to listen to all of it and have a conclusive opinion on nearly 3 hours of music. I liked some, others felt like they were clear demos. Honestly will return just for the breadth and a couple of those just have the perfect combo of vocals and melody. I swear there’s like three songs on the first two discs that just have the same lame synth boops as it’s beat.
I'm not listening to all of that.
Listened to like half, some are good some are bad
I went to go see them live with Jocelyn, prolly one of the worst concerts ive gone to. They sounded good but I didn't like the venue and they didn't play really any songs I knew bc this album is so mf long. Def enjoy the music in general but 69 is a lot of songs.
Just way too long
This indie pop album uses sparse, lo-fi arrangements of drum machines, simple synths, acoustic guitars, and occasional orchestral touches, paired with monotone, near–spoken-word vocals used more as narrative tools than expressive instruments. Unfortunately 69 times.
I’m glad this ended the long term feud with Houmous & Chutney. It started when H&C released their album 30 Love Songs. The Magnetic Fields weren’t to be outdone and released 31 Love Songs. This went on for 6 long months of relentless album releases. 3.0 4/69 A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off
Really fun, a lot of bit sized songs and not what I expected given the title
Interesting! Folk/rock kind of vibes. Rhyming “Dakota” and “iota” and “quota” was pretty clever.
So they like tried to make a love album that had a love song of like every genre available in the 90s but I would say about 40 of the songs sound pretty similar and 20 songs doesn’t seem like to much for an album. But then they would have been able to name it the sex number album. 7/10
A difficult album to rate – not only because I have mixed feelings about it, but also because it’s hard to give a unified rating to what is basically 3 or 4 albums folded into one. To be honest, there’s almost nothing I like here musically. Soft indie pop with a bittersweet vibe bores me very quickly, and had this been a standard 12-tracks album, I would probably have given it the lowest rating possible, especially since I’m really not a fan of the singer’s droning voice. However, regardless of how I feel about the music, you’ve got to admire the sheer commitment (and even madness) it takes to create such a gigantic tapestry of songs and call it an album. I can only respect a band that so boldly goes against the usual norms of the format. To honor their insanity, I tried really hard to appreciate it – I painfully pushed myself through all 69 songs, grinding my teeth at every turn after the first hour or so. Were my efforts worth it in the end ? Not really, unfortunately. I recognize the talent, and I respect the concept – the idea of a collection of semi-parodic love songs exploring the various tropes and stereotypes of the genre is fun on paper, and there’s a clear humoristic vibe that I can totally dig. It’s also more experimental than it sounds at first, with an interesting mix of pop, cabaret music and strange jazzy beats. However, the execution leaves me mostly indifferent ; the songs are a mixed bag of nice and awful tracks, and start to feel terribly repetitive after the 20th or 30th song you listen in a row. So yeah. It’s not my cup of tea, and I will never ever listen to this album again. But despite my own lack of personal interest, I’ll add 1 star for originality and audacity. 4/10
Impressive. To be honnest I didn't go through the three albums but a good half of the singts and they are diverse, some rock, some jazzy, thet text are pretty good and original. I'll give a 3 for good effort.