69 Love Songs

loved it

Álbum bem variado musicalmente. Truthear Zero: Red.

With an album with such a length and containing so many songs, it’s difficult to fully assess this recording. Indeed, it’s a bit of an ask to listen to it in one sitting. However, one thing that comes across is that there’s a wide variance in quality. Nothing particularly bad on the album, all the songs have a certain quality but some are definitely better than others.

Really good, impressive they made an album of 69 songs and i cant think of one that was bad

ganz schlimm. ich ha so 7 lieder usghalte und probiert wohlwollend si, bi the luckiest guy isch denn aber endgültig schluss gsi. s album gfallt mer gar nöd: langwiiligi harmonie und rhythme, er cha gar nöd singe, si wo spöter singt au nöd, er isch ständig z tüf und falsch und unfrei und si singt literally aalles ide bruststimm. au d giige hert verstimmt. d ukulele git en vibe vonere schlechte video-hintergrundmusig. d songs sind zudem vill z kitschig und z country-like. und denn sinds auno 69 songs, wer het sich das überleit: defür dasses lustig wär sind d lieder vill z ernst gmeint.

Never heard of them.There are a bunch of songs on here that I quite like, well, the melody at least, but in general I couldn't quite get into it. Maybe I'm just old. 69 songs is a great effort and It's by no means a bad album but just not for me.

fun!! sooo long...

Ok, a couple gems, but this was a slog. I tried to be open-minded and I thought it had some charm, but after a while it just became too much.

I've always been a fan of They Might Be Giants so the idea of lots of genre-hopping, short, silly and sometimes dark songs doesn't deter me. However, the sheer length of this thing makes it almost impossible to absorb in one sitting and review coherently. I liked a lot of the songs on here and the often wry observation of different foibles of love and you have to admire the sheer ambition of it, but I also do wish it was somehow trimmed down. None of the 69 songs are quite as good as God Wants Us To Wait from the album they brought out about a decade later.

This album desperately needs weeding. Most of the songs are just weak. Others feel undercooked and would gain from having more time and effort spent on each of them. Music is repetitive, vocals go from bad to nice but as a whole this is unlistenable.

Not for me

At best, reminded me of Jonathan Richman or Sufjan Stevens or The National. At worst, and at such length (although I respect the commitment to the concept) it drags on and feels dull and repetitive. (2.5 stars)

I spent 968 albums dreading this based on all of the gripe I've read… and I like it. Starting with the cover, this album leaves nothing to the imagination. It's a concept album. About love songs. 69 songs long. This no-frills cover does what 80% of the albums on this list can't even come close to. No foggy paintings of lakes with boats on them, no poetic interpretation. 69 Love songs is different and original and when compared to the endless amounts of Britpop that shouldn't be hear, it's probably shorter. 3.5/5

Dude, if you had made it like fifteen love songs, like "Book of Love" and the other good ones, sure, but...

Pleasant music to turn it on behind and not keeping notice of it. Put it on repeat and you will never get bored. But to listen it - it would be a huge deal. I did it now, once, and I will never do that again. Almost 3 hours!? No, thanks.

I really like a couple of the songs on here, but because there’s 69 the couple don’t really outweigh the rest.

Listened to all of them and it was actually endearing. I love it.. maybe not 3 hours though..

"69 Love Songs" is the sixth studio album by indie pop band the Magnetic Fields. Indie pop, indie folk, synth pop and baroque pop are the Wiki-listed genres. Works for me plus about 30 other styles. It is a three-volume concept album of 69 love songs all written by front man Stephen Merritt who is also credited with playing 63 instruments on the album including being mostly the lead singer. Merritt originally conceived the album as a music revue; he was sitting in a gay bar listening to a pianist's interpretation of Stephen Sondheim's songs and decided he wanted to get into theatre music and write 100 love songs. Well, 100 turned into 69 given the length of 100 songs. I don't doubt he could have done it. The other members of the Magnetic Field are Sam Davol (cello, flute), Claudia Gonson (piano, drum, percussion, vocals) and John Woo (banjo, lead guitar, mandolin, bass). Guest musicians and vocalists included LD Beghtol, Chris Ewen, Daniel Handler, Dudley Flute, Ida Pearle and Shirly Simms. The album had wide-spread critical acclaim. Volume One kicks off with "Absolutely Cuckoo." Merritt is fast talking. Happy-sounding. Layered string instruments including a ukulele. Don't fall in love...he's absolutely cuckoo. The Might Be Giants anyone? Merritt's deep baritone takes control on "I Don't Believe in the Sun." Piano, acoustic guitar, organ and drums. The sun has never shown on him. Beautiful song. LD Beghtol takes the vocal helm on "All My Little Words." A banjo is added to the acoustic guitar. Nice female backing vocals. He can't make his lover stay with all his little words. "The Book of Love" is a tender acoustic ballad sung by Merritt. The book of love is boring; he likes it when his lover reads him anything. "Sweet Lovin' Man" goes 80's synth pop. And vocalist Claudia Gonson goes Patsy Cline in a gorgeous-sounding song. Volume Two begins with Beghtol singing a capella in the short "Roses." The next song "Love Is Like Jazz" is Merritt's attempt at Tom Waits. Bass, organ and percussion. Free form jazz. "When My Boy Walks Down the Street" turns up the rock dial. Electric guitar. This sounds a lot like the Association's "Windy." I like almost any song that sounds like it wants to be a Guided by Voices song and we have that in "(Crazy for You) Not That Crazy." A weird synth, a jangly guitar and a dance beat too. Merritt's deep baritone sets the stage in the wonderful "Papa Was A Rodeo." It's slower with a synth and basic band. Heartfelt lyrics as he's saying goodbye and won't be back until next year...that's his life. "Papa was a rodeo and Mama was a rock n' roll band." The appropriately titled "Underwear" opens Volume Three. An electronic beat, a 60's spy guitar and a buzzing sound. Merritt is talking about there being nothing better than a pretty girl in her underwear and then also a boy in his. "Busby Berkeley Dreams" is a romantic ballads with a piano and strings. Merritt, at his most vocally vulnerable, sings about a lover leaving him even as he dreams them dancing in his outrageously beautiful Busby Berkeley Dreams. Claudia Gonson plays the wife and Merritt the cheating husband in "Yeah! Oh Yeah!" A rolling and urgent guitar and bass. A tongue-in-cheek song about a cheating husband who ends up killing his wife. "The Night You Can't Remember" successfully combines a ukulele, accordion and strings in a folksy song. It's a night the narrator can't forget. What an achievement and what an album. These 69 songs just flew by. The six different lead singers and musical variety kept things flowing. The musical variety that I noted included bouncy pop, psychedelic, rock, folk, traditional folk, country, rockabilly , Spanish, African, ballads, 80's synth pop, a capella, baroque, free-form jazz, blues and experimental. The lyrics are humorous, serious, tender, ironic and heartbreaking. I heard influences from and similarities to Leonard Cohen, Talking Heads, They Might Be Giants. The Association, Guided by Voices, Tom Waits, Kraftwerk and Morrissey. You might think there's a lot of filler with 69 songs but no, there's not and the highs are quite high. One of the best albums of the 90's and a must listen for everyone.

Very ambitious and not all of them are winners for sure. Somewhere in here is a 5 star record.

I really liked sweet lovin man, I didn’t see much reception for it but I really liked that one. Papa was a rodeo which I did see love for is incredible too! 4/5

Could've cut it down to a dozen or so and been better.

As soon as I forgot 'album' and regarded this as a song cycle it made more sense.

Might be ok if the best bits were condensed into 1 short album maybe with 6 to 9 love songs.

It feels a bit like an academic exercise.

There is absolutely NO reason for a shitty band to make 69 songs.

69 love songs too many!

quantity over quality...?

Way too long but also really good.

Tedious

Not really liking this sound.

Pretty interesting concept, but wow did I hate having such a long album, got stuck here for a while.

First time, magnetic fields listener. Enjoyed the deep vocals tracks, like book of love.

Appreciate the scope, concept, and humor

The music isn't *that* terrible, but fuck these guys for putting in zero effort to pare down this bloated mess of an "album."

Come on now..

the self indulgent final boss. there's absolutely no need to make people listen to 69 songs of drivel. its okay to edit sometimes !!!!

Too long

This is the slimmed down version from an original plan to do 100. Nice that they cut it to a reasonable length of 17 years. I'm still going, and resorted to shuffle to get through it. However the fact that none have annoyed me so far, some even made me laugh, is enough for a 4.

I often describe these albums of having chill vibes, but this one especially has chill vibes, plus the shear quantity.

I'm not listening to 2h45min of "I-have-a-deep-voice-and-this-is-the-only-thing-that-separates-me-from-other-artists". Pretty boring album and songs

I feel like this was the conversation while they were not in their right mind on a tour bus somewhere between Indianapolis and Memphis Member 1 "Hahaha, route 69..." Member 2 "69...how f*cking romantic, haha" Member 3 "Teenagers would totally buy an album if we named it 69" Member 2 "And we could call say they were romantic songs but they wouldn't actually be to be ironic and emo" Member 3 "Andy would bicycle across town in the rain to bring you candy..." Member 1 "They will totally eat that up...haha eat up, candy, 69..." *Everyone laughs like a 12 year old boy* Yeah...not impressed and just confused by this weirdness...

I thought all the love songs had been written but I guess not. They definitely have a knack for writing catchy melodies & pretty great lyrics. And the music is creative. They switch things up alot with different instrumentation, effects, and moods. I pulled 15 of these songs for playlists so that's about 22% of this collection. Slightly annoying that it's 3 discs but I get that it's part of the "concept". Overall, with exceptions of a few songs, it was pretty good and I was impressed that they could come up with that many song ideas and crank them out in some fun, quirky ways.

This is a LOT to take in, and I know this album has a hugely positive reputation. For some strange reason, I’ve never listened to it, so I’m going to put this one into the “needs more time” category of my musical life and rate it a 4 for now based on its rep. That may or may not change once I’ve given it a proper due.

This album gets a lot of buzz on the subreddit, so I was pretty stoked to finally get it today, and was prepared to strap in for the long ride. I was pleased to find it lives up to the hype! The songwriting is so incredibly creative, and it never seems to drag on because there's so much variety in sound and style. You never know what you're getting next, and there wasn't a single song that felt like a disappointment. It just all works so well together. Such a fun journey! I feel like I need to pick a favorite of the 69, and I'm going with Long-Forgotten Fairytale, but the whole thing was truly a delight. Definitely falls into masterpiece status in my book!

Voice is a bit boring. Melody's are good, overall not super interesting though. TOO MANY SONGS

The definition of quantity over quality

I couldn't get through it all - but unless the last part radically differs from the first two my score probably holds up. Difficult to know what to think, Feels more like you have stumbled upon s secret notebook rather than an album. It pushes what I consider to be an album to the limits. Not just in it's length (which is insane) but each song feels like a new page in that notebook rather than a stepping stone to a wider piece

I’m not wasting 3 hours listening to ho hum love songs. It was decent music but waaaaay tooo long.

Oh you know it’s just a little bit long of an album. If it was an hour long, it could be viewed in a more positive light. Lyrics were decent but 69 songs is crazy

Well that was something. This would’ve had a legit shot at a 4 if it wasn’t ALMOST THREE HOURS LONG. Wholly unnecessary. Sounded really nice but I didn’t want to spend pretty much all of my afternoon with this droning on in the background. If they hadn’t switched vocalists every now and then I would’ve lost my mind so I appreciated that.

3 albums & almost 3 hours of over-indulgent, self absorbed lyrics with vocals that are all over the place. made it thru the 1st album & that was more than enough. why oh why is this taking up space on this list???? 1.5 stars but I'll round up because they can play instruments & have some variety in sound

Hørte ikke alle 69.

Finfi, men litt for lang

Klassiker, men det er ikke fem av fem, noe er passe slitsom. "Papa was a rodeo" er kanskje den aller beste låta.

Ein god langspillar.

What.the.serious.fuck.?. …this is why people hate Indie music… Ps: I did make it through 16 songs, but 69? Three discs? …of this? no.

Random thoughts: * 69, heh heh heh * Kidding aside, this is a real ambitious endeavor. He tried for 100 songs and decided he could only make it to 69. * This was daunting, seeing it was a 2 hour and 52 minute play time across 3 discs. This nearly broke me. That a lot of listening. * There is no one I can fully comprehend and adequately rate this album after a single listen. It is definitely one that might be worth revisiting. * I liked some of the more psychedelic sounding tracks which seemed to be more on disc 3. "Underwear" was a standout."Papa Was A Rodeo". There was another song that had the voice all distorted like Darth Vader. That was cool. * Anyway, this is a big bold album and is definitely the kind of album that should be on 1001. Maybe I'll drift back into this one again and give it the proper attention needed.

I wonder if the author loved the significant other that much or he just wanted to get laid that badly. Quantity doesn't mean quality.

Didn’t wanna like this because of how long it was, but kinda liked it wasn’t able to listen to the whole thing

I was hopeful at first but the length made me mad, there is zero need to put out an almost 3 hour long album with that kind of music...!

Very extense and varied.

not bad a little boring at times very long but influential

Death by 1000 paper cuts. That's the best way to describe what I just went through. This isn't bad music. Its quite nice actually. Not exactly my style but I can get down for some amount of time. But not this amount of time. Give this man an editor, someone to tell him no. If this was like 12 tracks and maybe 45 minutes of runtime I would very easily give this a positive review but at 3 hours long its a test in patience more than an album. After 7 songs I was already fatigued. And knowing Im only 10% of the way there at that point is agonizing. I did listen to it all but I was done so fast. There are good songs probably but I could not pick them out of this police lineup of every person who ever lived. Its just insane. U have wasted my time and brother stop falling in love with every Barista u ever meet. Yes every woman is beautiful but have some damn restraint. Love isn't this and this only technically counts a music

Sounds lovely but sadly neither of us have the capacity for 69 songs by one band

Guy wrote 69 love songs while hanging out in bars in NYC in mid 90s. Indie pop. Lovely and folksy, very simple, pretty arrangements. Really cute.

I can give a lot of praise to this album for having 69 totally unique songs even if some are clearly better than others, I still am in awe at the sheer ambition here plus I’m a huge fan of Stephin Merritt and The Gothic Archies (I looooove Daniel Handler / Lemony Snicket / Series of Unfortunate Events) so this was an easy 10/10 for me

THREE FUCKING HOURS IM SO TIRED IT WAS GREAT THO I MEAN WHAT AM I TO SAY OBVS I GOT SICK OF IT 3.5 ROUNDING UP TO 4 STARS

Lol. The only thing I know about this album is that it’s super long, and I just had a few that were 2+ hours this weekend, so I’m not thrilled… — “All My Little Words”! Years ago I came across a synthesizer cover of this song on YouTube and for some reason it permanently lodged itself in my brain, but I’d never heard the original. That unexpected jolt of joy automatically gives the album a boost. Hah, I’ve heard “The Book Of Love” too, though I don’t remember where. Honestly, in spite of myself, I’m finding this pretty charming. Sure, it’s kind of a quantity over quality sort of thing, but there are some gems here - and I think it should get some credit for being as long as it is without feeling like a total slog. The bite-size songs make it much more manageable. I like the idea of this being an album about love songs, not love itself. The playfulness and sense of humor underlying it (though still with some earnestness) is what really won me over. Having finally finished, I’ll admit: this was a good album and I liked it. Above all, it feels very human. I’ll be sure to revisit it (if not necessarily in its entirety). Favorites: “All My Little Words,” “The Book of Love,” “Time Enough For Rocking When We’re Old,” “No One Will Ever Love You,” “You’re My Only Home,” “My Only Friend,” “Washington, D.C.,” “Epitaph for My Heart,” “Asleep and Dreaming,” “Abigail, Belle of Kilronan,” “Underwear,” “Bitter Tears,” “I Can’t Touch You Anymore” 4-4.5

WTF did I just listen to and how did it last 3 hours. There were some hints of a few good songs here but none really felt finished and unfortunately there weren't 3 good songs with some filler to fill out a 45 minute album there were 3 or 4 OK songs with 65 filler songs to fill out 3 hours. I guess from a this is something different standpoint I get putting it on the list but just didn't work for me.

Found some of these songs kinda charming…

Dipped in and out, one song was alright, it’s obviously too long

THREE HOURS! waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 3/5, and yes I did listen to every single song

It’s so many songs! Oh…69. Liked what I got through!

I made it. It drug on at times, but it wasn’t the slough I thought it would be. Short songs kept me engaged.

These songs were funny lyrically. Decent album musically, another one to check off the list.

I did not make it through the whole album, but I like some of their stuff. Going with three.

Fav: The One You Really Love Notes: This one takes some getting used to. Clocking in at nearly 3 hours, it's hard to do that in one day as this exercise demands. Def could have been cut down but then you wouldn't have 69 songs I guess. Good bit of song writing nonetheless.

NGL, didn't have the time to give this one a thorough listen, but it's 69 songs on 3 discs, so, I think that's not really a surprise. There's some fun stuff on here, I love his voice. The song writing is fun, but it's a bit much of one thing, though I respect the concept and the dedication they obviously had to record 69 love songs on one album.

Perfect number of love songs

Favorite Track: All My Little Words

Simple and sweet

Luckily for me, today is Saturday and I have some free time. A 3-hour album, for christ sake... But against all odds, judging by the length of the album, the number of tracks and that horrible cover, I really liked this album. Well, at least the songs, individually speaking. From what I read on the wiki, the idea behind the album was to showcase the songwriting talents of the vocalist Stephin Merritt, and he really does it very well. The songs are genuinely interesting, both lyrically and instrumentally, and completely avoid any cliché that the album's title might suggest. The biggest flaw of this album is precisely its unbearable length, as it doesn't create any pleasant experience in a "one go listen". Generally, a tired adult who doesn't have time to dedicate 3 hours of their day to listening to music with due attention will take at least 3 days to finish listening to it, thus creating a much stronger connection with just one of the three sides of the album, or with the songs themselves, individually only. In short, as an album: 3 stars, because it follows the theme established in the title, but it is unbearably long. Musically speaking: 4 stars, because the songs are genuinely interesting and avoid any cliche that the name of the album might suggest. I'm in a good mood, I'll give it 4 stars hahaha.

Fucking 10/10 for the title, concept and execution alone. Stephin Merritt is an absolute madman, and it's a brilliant choice to share the vocal spotlights. It makes the three hours fly by, especially when there is also so much variety in instrumentation and structure throughout. It's a perfect blend of sincerity and silliness. Highlights: 'I Don't Believe in the Sun', 'A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off', 'Come Back from San Francisco', 'The Book of Love', 'A Pretty Girl Is Like...', 'Love Is Like Jazz', 'No One Will Ever Love You', 'The Night You Can't Remember', and my all time favourite love song: 'Papa Was a Rodeo'.

Extremely ambitious project by Stephin Merritt. Even with a runtime of just under 3 hours, an illegal length under most conditions, there’s enough variation for time to fly by. The idea is mad and shouldn’t work. Yet it does.

- art -

Normally rate longer albums a little lower because they aren't as replayable as shorter ones, and this album certainly has a lot of filler, but there are some really great songs on this, I kind of wish they took the 15 or so best songs and had an album of them. Having said that overall I enjoyed it.

Initial reaction … Who? 🤷‍♀️ Wikipedia … Oh No 😔 Reviews … I’m really going to hate it Track 1 … let’s hope they are all this short Track 2 … I quite like his voice, maybe won’t be so bad Track 5 … who’s the girl? A bit screechy Track 14 … He sounds bored now. Track 34 … halftime break ⬇️ ⬇️ Track 35 … back in (it’s all a bit same-y) Track 48 … that seemed like a really long pause between tracks - I honestly thought it had finished 😔 Track 53 … time for another break 🥱 ⬇️ ⬇️ Track 57 … I think he’s losing it Track 68 … this is my favourite track (skip to this one if you’re cheating 😉) Done ✔️ Feels like I deserve some sort of reward. I’ve awarded 2 stars for effort .. but I will NEVER be listening again.

Has to be a joke.

Holy shit, 69 songs for real? Nice.I guess this is what I'm listening to today... It's cool a band did this, but this is not for me. It is 68 songs too many. I imagine if I were to inject heroin into my veins and pass out on the living room floor for the afternoon, this would be a good album to have playing in the background. OMG, I'm going to lunch and it's still playing... I am glad I can mark this off the list, never to revisit it again. Track 22 was a favorite, Sweet-Lovin' Man. Kind of a 60's throwback. This album has some ok songs, followed by some of the worst songs I've ever heard. It ebbs and flows, which would happen when you have 69 songs on an album. Thank Buddha, it's over. I'm giving this a 2.

What a slog this was. This album absolutely bottlenecked my progress on this project. I’d listen to a chunk when I could, then when I came back I’d always jump in at the wrong spot, not realizing it until some lyrics felt vaguely familiar. Then I’d have to hunt around to find where I’d actually left off. This cycle repeated itself over and over across a couple of weeks, until the clouds finally parted today and I made it to the end. I can’t help but wonder about the impetus for this project. It honestly sounds like something dreamed up as a bar bet: "69 is a funny number; I bet I can write 69 love songs for my next album.” To be fair, the music itself isn’t bad at all. There’s every genre you could think of here (and even some you couldn't), and everything is sung and played well. Still, many of the songs reminded me of commercial jingles or show tunes--clever, busy, and eager to land a witty lyric or unexpected rhyme rather than dig into something more vulnerable. They feel more like exercises in craft than expressions of feeling. Smart, competent, and occasionally charming, but ultimately more head than heart.

This came out when I was 17. An annoying indie boy was gushing about it and played me 30 seconds of a track. I was a metal fan, and didn't really get it. And now I'm really annoyed at myself. Because this is incredible. It's a 3cd album that doesn't feel bloated. Every song is in a different style with different instrumentation and 3? Different singers? and yet there's a clear running thread of humour, beautiful imagery, well used conceits. Some songs are bare bones sketches, none are long enough to outstay their welcome. If I'd truly listened to this at the time I think it would have taken my life in a different direction. It's not perfect, but out of 69 songs at least 60 are really good, and at least 10 are utterly brilliant. Savour this.

3.5? Tough one because I’d give the first disc a 4.5.

69 songs, 2 hours and 45 minutes long. Not one mention of a horse wife. What are we even doing here?

There is not a single chance in hell that I am listening to this ridiculous concept of an album a second time. I hardly even consider it to be a musical project at all because the music itself is so apparently not the main focus of the project. It's a "Oooh it's the sex number 🤣🤣🤣" joke where the music is ironic and not at all interesting

Really, really long. Actually 69 love songs, but it was good.

mid

Oh wow, literally 69 songs. This might be the only album I do today. Lots of nice songs, but (like many others said), there's bound to be filler with so many songs. 3* The "Great Value Johnny Cash" description in someone else's review was pretty spot on. The book of love sounded familiar, but i didn't recognize any of the Wikipedia mentions.

Voices were mostly pleasant and a lot of the songs were somewhat enjoyable, but the album commits the cardinal sin of being forgettable while its being listened to. On more than one occasion i had to check to see if my player had screwed up reset to the beginning of the album cuz so many songs were too similar. Add on that this behemoth is 3 hours long.... like why? Just because you can do a 3 hour album doesn't mean you should. While ive forgotten a lot of the albums ive listened to on this project,very few were forgettable whilst being actively listened to. I couldn't tell you which songs were actually enjoyable. They weren't that remarkable to begin with but the fact so much was same same makes everything worse. Album could've been a 4 if the more unique songs were cherry picked and released as a more typical album.

Wahoo! An astonishing feat in modern pop songwriting, and funny as hell, too.

Lol

too long but a NICE idea

It wasn’t invasive but I don’t feel like it was necessary to be 3 hours. I get the “69” connection but I’m pretty sure I turned off half way through

Once I learned this wasn’t almost 3 hours of experimental electronica I breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was relatively pleasant.

This did not need to be this long... really started tuning it out.

Alright - getting this part out of the way; it's long as all hell and is a dumb idea. Reading out it, they thought of doing 100 love songs and decided that would be too long so they did 69. This is a dumb thing to do to anyone. I'm sure there are some okay songs in here. As a personal challenge or quest I respect someone for putting in the work and creativity to do this. It doesn't mean it's good. I listened to this in batches the same way someone would get through exercise or studying.

I'm scared Like the crumbs falling off of a crusty bread of a better album. Am I experiencing a musical madness? A musical multiverse of 69 ways one song could have ended up? I'm too busy trying to survive this avalanche of songs to retain anything. There is no way this is required listening. I don't even hate this. It's kind of inspiring actually. Sonically there might be something here, but this is supposed to be a list of albums you MUST hear. I fell asleep and almost gave it 4 stars twice. There is too much!

Quantity dies but equal quality

This is the first album on this list that I haven't fully listened to before giving my rating, and I don't intend to catch up later. 20 Songs in it is pretty clear what this is going to be: An excruciatingly long collection of fairly bad drafts. Not nice.

I got nearly an hour in before deciding this doesn’t deserve my time.

I like the first song so I’m intrigued, but this feels like a big commitment today. 😂🤣 2nd song is great too. If they can keep this up the whole time this will be great, but that will be a feat. Only on the third song and this is really great. I think it’s the instrumentation selections on these songs that are making this so much fun. Each song is unique. There is so much variety here and yet it’s held together like a good mix tape. I’m glad I didn’t skip this one. Halfway through the second collection of 23. “Long forgotten Fairy Tale” is brilliant. This record is amazing. This arrangement on “the way you say goodnight” is just fantastic! Last song on the second collection “I shatter” is like a twisted Leonard Cohen and I love it. I truly can’t get over what a great collection of songs this is. When I saw 69 love songs and then realized it was really 69 songs, I was going skip this one. I’m almost to the end now and cannot believe how many great songs are on this one collection. This album should be the focus of songwriting curriculum in music schools and classes. This album is brilliant.

Way too long to be this boring.

Not my thing at all.

There were actually 69 damn songs

This is...a lot. It's a sullen and melancholic mood for the most part, with drone vocals and some funky electronic music to complement. It's okay overall, but I won't seek this out unless I'm looking to fit in a particular scene. It's okay.

Didn’t enjoy

Some really good songs but just too many songs.

I rolled my eyes at the concept and the name of the album. However, I managed to get through the first two volumes and actually quite enjoyed it, the lyrics were humourous and there was good variety. Didn’t finish it so can’t be a 4 but I quite liked what I heard

Got through 2/3rds of this and counting as a lesson. There’s some genuinely decent stuff in this but unfortunately it’s sandwiched between monotony and shite

This album literally got me stuck for a month and a half. I started it a few times and couldn't make it thru. Finally I forced myself to sit all the way thru the 2hours and 53 minutes of this. This album is far to bloated for an artist of this caliber. The Beatles earned the White Album with their previous great albums, we could all tolerate some of the terrible songs on that album. The Magnetic Fields have not earned that leeway. This album could have been shrunk down to the 12 or 13 decent songs on it and made a solid album. Instead we get this self absorbed album of mostly nonsense and filler that should not have seen the light of day. This gets a 1 because of all these reasons. If you looked at the handful of good songs, this might have been a 3 or 4 star album. Instead it wastes your time.

Listening to this was a lengthy undertaking! But it was fun!

Woah, that was a seriously long album. There were some great songs on it. Very impressive and ambitious project!

Big impact on girls who used Photo Booth on their parent’s MacBook to recorded ukulele covers in 2009/2010. (I am one of those girls.) Look– it’s long. It’s exactly what it says it is: 69 love songs, 172 minutes of ‘90s twee indie pop for first-wave Williamsburg hipsters. If your critique is that it’s long, that’s dumb. Meet the record on its own terms. If your critique is that you hate hipster music, then that’s a bit more valid, especially because, yeah, then those 172 minutes will make this a difficult listen. But I think both those critiques aren’t actively listening to this album. To me, 69 Love Songs is an achievement in composition. It is a living testament to how good songwriting shines through no matter what you’re playing the song on, how good the production is, or even if you have your typical instruments on hand. Most of this album is played on what I would lovingly call ✨garage instruments✨ (literally bullshit you find lying around in the garage where you practice): Casio keyboards, drum machines for children, accordions, out of tune guitars, kazoos, ukuleles, an old piano covered with dust, etc. On paper, it should all sound like trash, but Merritt is such a master of the art of songwriting that every single one of these songs feels timeless. If you played these on better instrumentation, surely they’d be hits; that’s evident by the various cover versions of multiple songs here. But the scrappy low fidelity is part of the charm, just like the dopey concept itself to write the funny number of serious romance songs. And despite the low fidelity, so much of this album still sounds incredible, because the songs themselves just cut through to your soul. Now, while Merritt is a master of songwriting, I won’t try and claim that every song on here is a hit. When you write 69 songs in one period, statistically, some will be weaker than others, and even if they all are great, some listeners will always have complaints about a handful. That’s one problem for me, as it should be for anyone who gives this record an honest listen (I personally hate “Fido, Your Lease Is Too Long,” which might be a hot take). But 69 Love Songs also has its fair share of ~experimental cuts~ that definitely were only included in order to reach the funny number: “Experimental Love Music,” “Love Is Like Jazz,” “Xylophone Track,” etc. It’s also par for the course of any ’90’s indie album, when pseudo-intellectual experiments were in vogue regardless if it served the song. Still, sometimes the experiments hit, whether it’s the weird outdated keyboard tones on a cut that feel annoying at first but eventually turn into a hook, or songs like “World Love” and “Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget” that sell you on the conceit itself. And honestly, even taking this into account, the hit-to-dud ratio is still VERY high. I think that’s also because while Merritt is the main songwriter, a) the vocalist changes frequently enough to keep you engaged, and b) the style, while always ✨hipster✨ in every way, does change sonically from track to track. The benefit of 69 songs is that there’s inherent variety, and that’s very much to this record’s benefit. I also think that most sane people know to digest this record disc by disc, and not blaze through it in a single sitting, at least not the first time. While I think each disc has generalized themes (Disc 1= Mainstream Indie Pop, Disc 2= Experimental Indie Rock, Disc 3= Musical Theatre Indie Pop), they all contain some element of each other, so it’s still connected, but giving yourself air between discs helps it all breathe a bit more. I think a part of me would try to argue that if you ONLY had Disc 1, you’d have an undebatable masterpiece, but I think each disc is a 5-star record in and of itself, or at least an 8.5/10. Every disc has some of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard in my life, followed by some dumb hipster piss take. Your mileage on the latter depends on your Millennial-ness, but the former is universal, and still makes up the majority of this album, and both make for a really great listen to my ears front-to-back.

Maybe they should've done 12 good songs rather than 69 middling/awful ones. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean it should be.

1 out of 5. Sorry to say I didn't finish this one but I feel like I got the gist of it.

there is no reason this should be 3 hours

3 hours...couldn't make it all the way through, some songs were good most were painful.

So many great tracks throughout. A fair number of duds but that’s understandable. I could see this landing anywhere from 3-5 based on its highs, lows, and overall ambition. I guess I’ll average it out to 4. Best tracks “papa was a rodeo”, “kiss me like you mean it”, “luckiest guy on the lower east side”, “sweet-lovin’ man”

Prolific album

3 hours of strangeness.

I was dreading this album since I knew it was on the list, and so here we are. Unbelievably obnoxious in its length while not offering a single song good enough to warrant this project (I appreciate the commitment to the 69 bit though). People compliment Merritt’s lyricism, but these songs have lyrics more akin to the childish shallowness of a Moldy Peaches album than anything profound; it’s criminal this is on here when not a single Mountain Goats album makes the list. So yeah, didn’t like this album one bit. My friends used to get together and we’d spend a whole weekend writing and recording really dumb songs just for the sake of it: this album feels like that, just quantity over any quality. There’s some songs better than others (worst among them has to be the dreadful genre pastiches like the jazz and world music ones, they actually feel insulting to listen to) but as a collection I don’t ever want to listen to this again.

I've been dreading this one for a while. It's kind of an insane commitment we've made here to listen to an album every single day, so the prospect of effectively listening to 3 was sorta like the full chamber in Russian Roulette (I've already done the Ella Fitzgerald one). So sure enough, there I am at half 11 at night squeezing out the last of these crappy tracks after a full Easter Sunday. I nearly had some admiration when I read the Wikipedia page and it seemed like there was some intended irony, but the artist has another really long album like this too. In summary, your scientists were so obsessed with whether they coil, they didn't stop to think if they should.

Stellar

Always thought this was a bit too gimmicky for its own good, though there's still a lot to like here. My favorites tend to be when they dip into country (e.g., "All My Little Words" or "The One You Really Love"), or the more Brill Building-ish songs (such as "Sweet Lovin' Man" or "When My Boy Walks Down the Street"). Luckily for me, both those types of songwriting get their own full albums, which I end up listening to a whole lot more. 3 hours is just too much! Listen to The Wayward Bus or Charm of the Highway Strip or something, don't listen to this one unless you're *really* dedicated.

I tried, I really did. I listened to 25-30 songs. They all sucked. I couldn't handle listening to all 69. Not worthy of being on this list for me.

The Book of Love is an all time great song

A good thing, but you know what they say about too much of a good thing…

It’s definitely one of the most unique albums on the list, and I respect that, but at the same time it’s 3 hours (although it’s less boring than you would think) Also I kind of want to get the Gershwin Songbook tomorrow just because I think getting both 3 hour albums in a row would be really funny

Some of these are ok but a 3-hour album? Cmon man these weren’t all ready for prime time

Whew! This was a long one

I liked it a bit more than I thought I would. It’s certainly a lyrics album, I wish I had the ability to listen in as closely as I should. Way too long though, very tedious to get through.

Definitely quantity over quality.. why does this exist on this list?

TL;DL. No but seriously 69 songs bro

Ngl been waiting for this one 200+ days ever since hearing about it but it was a super disappointment. Really got into a few on the first 23 but the next 23 there was barely any and the last 23 all just were meh. I was hoping at the very least a 3 star rating would be achieved but this is 2. Bad. Unfortunately

Is this a sick practical joke? Who is this made for? I can't imagine the type of person that sits and listens to this. I think this is almost experimental in a way that it's art is actually the subject? Or perhaps it's just a torture method? Who knows. I have no qualms with long art like this (Hell just last week I watched Satantango, a 7 1/2 hour Hungarian film) but it need to have a purpose, or at least not be a boring slog like this. 2/10 every once in a while an ok song would come along, only to be drowned out by 10 bad ones.

Gear: Moondrop Variations Artwork: 🕕🕘⬜ Production: 🙄🤔🤷 Music: 🎶😐💤 Rating: ♋︎(♋︎)/5

3/5

So self-indulgent to take 15 bangers and dilute them with a bunch of also-rans. Nobody wants to listen to a fucking triple album. Stop it. 2.5

Es un majestuoso disco, una despedida de siglo por todo lo alto. Lo he escuchado bastantes veces a lo largo de estos año, no entero porque lo bueno que tiene es que hay canciones de todo tipo estilo y condición (hasta su propio estilo electro-cacharreante como en Log Forgotten fairytale, Strange eyes o I can´t touch you anymore), predomina las miniaturas pero todas con gran calidad, y uno va haciendo listas según el momento. Destacan siempre: I dón´t believe in the sun, All my little words, Ithink a new heart, Sweet loving mán, Washington DC, Bitter tears, Yeah! oh! yeah!, The night you can´t remember, Parades go by, Come back from San Francisco, The things we did and didn´t do, When my boy walks down the street, No one will ever love you, No that crazy, Abigail, The death of F d S, Meaningless, How to say goodbye, los Beach Boys pasados de vueltas en Xylophone track y el vodevilesco cierre final con Zebra. Stephen Merritt ha tenido otros buenos momentos (el anterior Get lost fue estupendo, I y Distortion también pero diferentes. Quickies fue otra obra de orfebrería y 50 Song Memoir fue un retorno al 69) , pero su cima es sin duda este triple donde va alternando temas con su voz y con la de Shirley o Claudia, lo que se agradece. No se olvide que es una obra extensa, pero completa por temas de amor. Podrían ser 4-5 o 7 discos por separado, es decir la discografía de alguna banda sin embargo funciona mucho mejor como obra compacta, a modo de obra teatral (como así fue pensada). Es curioso que este sea triple, como Tusk o Sandinista, que al igual que este fueron los siguientes trabajos después de la obra maestra respectivamente de The Clash o Fleetwood Mac. Una obra que escuchar una vez en la vida? sin duda

I tried, I really tried. But there is no way I could listen to the whole album. I hated the vocals and the songs were boring. Cheesy cliches “not for all the tea in china” “like a chicken with its head cut off”. Indie for the sake of Indie. Silly. Self indulgent.

Not quite

Goddamn. I listened to this one from 5am-8am in my way to work, what a behemoth. I thought I listened to much of this before but soon realized I've mostly listened to songs off of disc 1. It is absolutely masterful that they conceived of this many distinct songs with the same theme. At no point does it feel like there is repetition, and the tracklist is constantly engaging. Outstanding piece of musical history, though I think I'll only listen to it all the way through this one time. 5/5

Any album that's gonna take up 3 hours of my time better be a damn good one... ...ok, fair enough! Pretty much every song contained something that made me smile, either lyrically or musically - and often both. The fact I'm even considering listening to the whole thing again speaks volumes. A triumph of ambition, wit and throwaway pop songwriting. SURPRISE FIVE STARS.

I fw the Magnetic Fields - I like Andrew in Drag and Your Girlfriend’s Face. I’ve never liked the woman’s voice but it’s ok. They’re quirky and interesting. I like how all the songs are short and sweet and many of them are silly. It’s pleasant, but as with any 69-song long album, some of them are gonna be better than others.

a BEAST of an album. I haven't listened to it straight through it's so massive. So many great songs. Really all over the place sylistically/creatively.

Timeless

I liked the songwriting, the male singer's deep voice, and the general vibe, but I wasn't going to listen to 2 hours of this. I like it, but the lyrics require more attention than I can spare while working. Better for a long car drive.

This was terrible. Couldn’t make it past the first 15 songs.

There are a few good songs on this album but most are just weird little dittys. Didn't finish it though because one of the tracks made me feel physically ill.

Lord, took forever to get through, but 100% worth it.

took me over 4 months to get to this but it was well worth it. Probably more of a 3 but I have no problem giving it a 4 due to the ambition and genre differences

A singular experience. This sounds like an alien or an AI model who’s been fed 69 random love songs and has tried to recreate 69 of its own, realizing the form but feeling distinctly soulless and unnerving in the actual content. But it seems that was the exact vibe they wanted? There’s a lot I could say about this, much of it bad, some of it good. There are some horrible songs, a few legitimately good ones, and a ton of experimental oddities swimming around in the difference. It’s difficult to evaluate that last group, because so many tracks feel more like goofy proofs-of-concept or stabs at a new genre rather than actual songs. The experience of listening to it is full of novelty, but at the end you’re going “what?” more than any feeling of admiration. So I have no desire to ever listen to this again, but I can’t keep myself from appreciating the extreme ambition as well as the bizarre humility of this album. It did exactly what it set out to do in an incredibly weird way, and so I can’t help but judge it to be a success. Disc 1’s best song: The Book of Love Disc 2’s best song: Papa Was a Rodeo Disc 3’s best song: I Can’t Touch You Anymore

Any album that goes from one of the most beautiful love songs ever written straight into a song about a dog is a 5 in my book. A truly unbelievable feat of ambition. A deserving classic.

Niiiiiice... For real though, this is a prime example of why quality over quantity is important. There wasn't much that stuck out over the nearly 3 hr runtime, and I get the impression they're writing this number of songs more as an achievement rather than for the artform or having something important to say. So yeah, I did get the whole way through it as background noise, but didn't feel worth my time

Not gonna lie, I did not get through all of these. Some were pretty good - but come onn, 69 tracks?!

Oh this is literally 69 songs...not nice. I guess what I'll try to do is just type out which songs I like per disc and just grade it from there...here goes: Disc 1: All My Little Words, I Don't Want to Get Over You, I Think I Need A New Heart (heard this one before and it's in The Bear season 2 finale for anyone curious) Disc 2: When My Boy..., No One Will Ever Love You, Epitaph For A Heart Disc 3: Underwear, Bitter Tears Out of the 69 songs, I only really liked 8. The rest were pretty good though, but I did hit skip on at least 3 or 4 (like I Shatter) that were bad. I don't know what to do with this one other then give it a straight 3.

I remember trying this one back in college when a friend of mine dumped a selection of his iTunes library on me to broaden my horizons. At the time, I think the length of the tracklist was too daunting and I didn't give it an honest try. Here goes again... Disc 1: Really enjoy All My Little Words. Just a well-written Americana styled love song with plucked banjo and violin support. I Don't Want to Get Over You is another early standout -- I like the weird processed vocals and warbly synth-shit its got going on. Something in the vibe and vocal processing of Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits reminds me a bit of Animal Collective. Also one of the funnier songs thus far. I Think I Need a New Heart is another well-written song. Not really a flashy one, but Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long is a favorite of mine from this first disc. Love the calm electronic scratching. Disc 2: Okay, finally work is kicking in and taking my attention away... Papa Was a Rodeo is a mid-disc standout. Low-key and understated, but the vocals are solid and I really like how simple it i Disc 3: Underwear is a strong start to this final entry. Love the vibe -- vocal delivery reminds me a lot of Nicolas Jaar's Space is Only Noise. I was not able to dedicate much time to writing notes, but I think this 3rd disc was my favorite of the entries. Strange Eyes was a late album standout and I enjoyed the kookiness of Xylophone Track. No question, this is a marathon of a concept album. But as with a good marathon trial, this is impressive for how well it held up across the nearly 3 hour runtime. Will I sit down and listen to it again front to back any time soon? no. But I did enjoy almost every track on here and did not feel completely worn out by the end. Credit where its due. This is an impressive accomplishment and a fantastic record. High 4 / 5.

Nice. The original Book of Love version! Scrubs' finale episode uses a covered version of this song. For being 3 hours, I actually enjoyed this for the most part. It is still entirely too long, but I never felt like it was droning on. This is easily in the 3.5-4 star range. The length itself is a negative, but I think in this case I commend The Magnetic Fields for filling it out as well as they did, definitely not easy to have a 3 disc album that doesn't really get stale. Soft 4 after all of that.

Wow what an absolute marathon. That surprisingly never got old though because of the crazy variety of songs. Some of the noises that were in this were absolutely hilarious but I was all about them. One of the more unique albums we have gotten and to be honest if it was another hour long disc I still would have listened. Something about that style was just very easy to listen to. This was a very solid 4, but an album I would never listen to again because of the length only. I wish I paid more attention to some of the song titles cause a few I would like to relisten to...oh well

Ugh wtf this is actually 69 songs and almost 3 hours long. This is messed up.. How about 14 of my finest love songs asshole? Just finished the first disc and it's nothing special. Probably going to be another 2 hours of this which I'm not a huge fan of. Some songs have an LCD Soundsystem sound to them but that's like 2/3 out of 69. This probably deserves a 3 but it gets a 2 from me because this dude sucks for not splitting this up.

Some entries on this list really call into question the author's taste.

I spent the weekend on ketamine a f****** my way through all of these songs with my girlfriend at the cottage

Jaha. Det här är för svårt att bedöma på ett rättvisande sätt. Jag har bara lyssnat en gång. Delvis ofokuserat. Gillar den mörka rösten. Och en hel del låtar är bra (tex den första.... ) Men det hade varit mycket bättre om det kokades ner till ett vanligt album. Får ändå trea, för det är mycket som är bra. Men det drar ner att det är för mycket.

Väldigt svårbedömt, särskilt eftersom det inte blir aktuellt med mer än en genomlyssning. En del är hyfsat bra men en del är rätt uselt också. Lite övervägande åt det sämre hållet så det blir en svag trea.

I really dont even know where to begin. Grand pianos smash together when my boy walks down the street! Busby Berkeley dreams? Book of love? So many masterpiece songs, an album full of 1 hit wonders. Maybe the most impactful albums of my life. 10/5

You had me at 69, you had me at 69.

I was dreading this album, and how long it would take me to get through, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The time flew by with these fun short little songs, never a dull moment!

Oh, what a cute title. They obviously don't literally mean 69 lo................... Made it through the whole thing. Didn't hate anything, will not listen to any of these tracks again. Just about regained consciousness enough on "For We Are The King of the Boudoir" because it sounded like something Henry VIII might have written and contained the, quick frankly MAGNIFICENT lyric : "One tryst with me and you'll be spinning like a gyroscope, One tryst with me and you'll be Pope" 1 star with a bonus star for the gyroscope / pope rhyming couplet.

This was my first time ever listening to it straight through in its entirety. What a great album. It shockingly lives up to its bold premise. There's so much variety here too that it never feels stale.

The sheer ambition gets it to 4 i guess

Too bang average to be 2 and a half hours long

one of a kind, not my fav but there are some really good songs in here

I really appreciate the ambitious scope of this project. They not only created three full albums that explore all aspects of love but also presented the material in a wide range of styles. However, I can't shake the feeling that this album could have benefited from a good editor, much like a 1,200-page novel. There are entire passages that could have been cut, as they don't contribute anything new to the story and simply repeat themes, either in the narrative or in the music. That said, I genuinely enjoyed the album and am glad I took the time to listen to it a few times over the last couple of days.

there is no world where i sit through 69 songs to give a rating on something i don't really enjoy. i did listen to the first disc. very meh but fair play for the concept...i guess

Hmmm ... this is a very strange album. My first thoughts were "terrible". But there are some real gems on it ("Time Enough For Rocking We're Old", "Long-Forgotten Fairytale" or even "Two Kinds Of People", which I love). In between then again stuff, which has nothing special. And because the majority of the album is like that I ended up giving a two.

Too many songs

This is truly incredible. Each song is a little gem. Merritt examines every aspect of love and then he covers so many song styles. First, I was interested, then beguiled, and eventually flabbergasted. Every emotion: from joy, through sadness, to wry laughter, to falling down laughter. It's all here! Oh...and some goan worthy rhymes. I'm down to the last 100 and this has been the best moment. Well... along with discovering P.J. Harvey.

From a songwriting perspective, it's a massive accomplishment to follow through on the concept of creating a new take on love for this many songs, and even more impressive to finish in a relatively short amount of time. I don't care for a lot of the songs, but some are very good. It's not a hot take, but The Book of Love is probably the best song, even if I prefer Peter Gabriel's version because that man is magic. I chose Nothing Matters When We're Dancing because I love the line: "Be we in Paris or in Lansing / Nothing matters when we're dancing".

That's a lot of songs, went down a rabbit hole to learn about them. Interesting

2/3 (too long)

You know what? Hell yeah. Why not make 69 love songs? The songs are cute, whimsy, charming - even if sometimes you have to sing lyrics like, “I can keep it up all night, I can keep it up all day” (in Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits). I was pleasantly surprised with how many of these songs I recognized and could sing along with. The vocalists are all fantastic. Sure, maybe didn’t need 2 hours and 45 minutes of this, but I appreciate the commitment. It didn’t blow me away, but I’m giving it 4 stars because I definitely want to return for repeat listens…all 3 hours of it.

Quirky music that doesn't take itself seriously is one of my favourite genres and I'm quite fond of The Magnetic Fields; in fact, I used The Book of Love in my wedding and it's still a song I love. This was an entertaining absolute barrage of songs about love from multiple perspectives, many strange and funny, but often hitting the nail on the head. With this many songs, some will be good and some bad, and I did start to tire of them by disc three, but I think this is a fantastic concept and give them four stars for sheer entertainment value and a few tracks I really, truly enjoyed.

How lame is the author? Theres barely enough good songs to fill an EP, much less this monstrosity. It's literally here because it makes the dumb haha 69 joke. Does the author of this book have a learning disability? Rating: 1.3

Warm sound, love the bass vocal. But a runtime of almost 3 hours is waay to much for this kind of music

I've listened to every song on this album, but never in one focused sitting. I'm always charmed by a self-imposed artistic challenge and the story of Stephin Merritt listening to Sondheim covers at a gay bar in New York and being inspired to write a massive collection of songs exploring the theatrical and pop music traditions that comprise "love songs" is iconic. Tongue in cheek yet tender, the album is a thesis statement on different kinds of love and the concept of and motifs used in love songs from a broad spectrum of musical genres and tropes. To sum up: "The book of love has music in it. In fact, that's where music comes from. Some of it is just transcendental. Some of it is jut really dumb."

This album is SO DAMN LONG. I get that's the point but I can't make it through so many songs. I understand and respect the concept, but most of these songs are not fully fleshed out, so not only does the tons of songs hurt the album because there are too many songs, but they are also of lower quality. Had this been cut to a single album and more effort had been put into the individual songs, this could be a 4 star album. As it stands, it's not that good. There are a couple of good songs on here, and if not for the random super weird tracks, this could put me to sleep. Favorite Song: I Don't Believe in the Sun Least Favorite Song: Experimental Music Love

The vast majority of these are really bad. I imagine the influence here is in the concept, but I’ll take quality over quantity.

Último martes de febrero y nos toca éste disco de una longitud de no creer y de una banda que me es desconocida: supongo que por la reseña de Wikipedia puede ser música de fondo. La primera canción me remite a los soundtracks de Wes Anderson y a la película Juno. Me gusta la voz ¿barítono? del cantante: su gravedad, por momentos, seca, por otros, emocional, se contrapone con los sonidos más suaves y tiernos de la música. Logré escuchar los tres álbums durante todo el día y lo sentí como un disco tranca, que por momentos funciona como música ambiental (éste tipo de indie tiende a cumplir esas funciones como de radio o música funcional...o eso me genera a mí) y, por otros, se vuelve más reflexivo. ¿Serán todos estas las características del amor? Interesante recomendación.

A dazzling variety of love songs in a cornucopia of musical styles and voices. Madly creative, with loads of tongue-in-cheek humor--and true to the subtleties of committed, loving relationships. "The Book of Love" is one of the great love songs, but I'd never listened to the rest of the album until now. My bad.

Soooo long. And not even that good fr.

This might take the cake for most self indulgent album of the cd era. I find the sheer length simply unbearable. I don't hear anything in the music/concept to justify its insane demand on the listener. Most of it is so half baked that I find it almost insulting. I don't get it. Both the singing voices and lyrics are irritating to me. In trying to march onward and listen to this there are some okay tunes buried in there but as an album its unrefined/unfiltered stance is utterly preposterous.

I will give 69 Love Songs credit, the title certainly was not lying but was it really to the benefit of the album. Due to the album's sheer number of songs, the run time clocks in at nearly 3 hours and they made sure to take advantage of that time to do whatever. When it comes to each field of the album (Lyrics, vocals and music) there is good, and there is really bad. This is just one of those albums where i feel that you could cut out a lot of these songs (even some of the more palatable ones) and this album would be much better. Granted, it would ruin the title but you really gotta ask yourself the question "Is the novelty worth it?". Best Song: If You Don't Cry Worst Song: Punk Love

For the record, I listened to this album a good couple of months ago because I didn't want to risk having to listen to this whole thing on a weekday. Here's the review I wrote for this album back in August 2024. Haha nice. I’m sorry. I had to. Anyways, let’s actually dive into 69 Love Songs, aka the winner of the “most literal album name” award. Yes, this album does actually contain 69 songs, all of which could be considered love songs. That does mean that this album goes on for nearly 3 hours. Was I tired by the end? Well, I listened to this over three days, so no, not really. However, this was still a daunting task. But did it pay off? Yeah. I’d say it did. I can see why it wouldn't for others, but it did for me. Not every song is good. With this many songs, there’s bound to be some stinkers in there. But the ones that are good are really good. There’s a lot to like here. The variety in this album is truly commendable. This could’ve easily been a repetitive slog, but because each song varies in both sound and lyrics, the album manages to justify its large song count and length. The sound is so varied that many of these songs could be considered completely different genres from each other, while the writing varies in how it deals with love. Love is a complex thing, and Stephin Merritt knows that. I have to give him props for writing 69 love songs that don’t just go over the same few things. Going back to the sound, the fact that there are multiple singers that each do different songs adds to the musical variety that this album brings. Most songs bring you Stephin Merritt’s low bass voice, while others have much higher vocal registers that come from singers like Shirley Simms and Claudia Gonson. Overall, this is an impressive album that is a bit bloated and isn’t always good, but manages to stand out as a widely varied album with some great songs. It’s kind of like the Beatles White Album in that regard. It’s not as good as the Beatles White Album, but it’s still quite good. Light 4/5.

Interesting idea.

Iconic.

Odd but enjoyable

If you’re to go to the effort of conceiving, writing, practising, refining, recording, mixing, mastering, distributing performing and touring a 69-song concept album then I feel that it’s only fair that I judge you exclusively on the merits of your 69-song concept album. Did the concept, in that most ineffable manner of speaking, succeed? Did it justify the additional demands placed on vinyl producers, warehouse logisticians, shipping and last-mile delivery companies, record shops, listeners and anyone else involved in the process of creating and participating in art? Did The Magnetic Fields manage to make something that’s greater than the sum of the sixty-actual-nine parts presented? From the offset, I’m unsure. I’m into song two (admittedly, still less than 3% of the way through the record) and I’m fearing that what I’m about to spend almost three hours subjecting myself and my family to is an exercise in the art of the possible. Yes, a good enough 69-song record about love can be made, just don’t expect it to move you beyond a polite toe-tap. Enjoy the concept because it’s the concept that really sells it! A minute or so later those clouds of doubt are further massing. My mind has raced off. What if the 69 OK songs about love leave me little space but to conclude that all of this is, this whole thing, creativity, concepts like “essential listening”, all of it, is just so many appeals to a completely predictable cultural median value. The joking use of “69” isn’t in reference to, ahem mutuality, but is rather a coded message about music itself being a sort of analogue for a composite number – multiply two positive integers and anyone can score a hit. What if this album about love forces me to fall out of love with … music? As is so often the case, “A chicken with its head cut off” forces a sharp re-centering of perspective. It’s a funny song, honky-tonking its way around the place like the titular beheaded chook. But then it starts to dawn on me – this isn’t a throwaway line. It’s actually a really quite perfect analogy for a set of feelings that might be best captured by the image of that poor bird. Who, I ask you, hasn’t been made to feel like a chicken with its head cut off by love? Have you ever lived otherwise? It all clicks into place for me from here. There are truly fantastic standalone songs that I’ll cherish forever (“Sweet-Lovin’ Man”, “No One Will Ever Love You”); surreal ditties (“Punk Love”, “Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits”); tunes that, given their subject matter, make me feel appropriately uncomfortable (“I Can’t Touch You Anymore”) or bittersweet and wistful (“I Don’t Want to Get Over You”) or reflective of how profoundly in-love one can be lucky enough to be (“Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing”). Even the stuff that doesn’t really work as ‘a song I like’ doesn’t fail to move me (a boudoir is the last place “For We Are The King of the Boudoir” should be experienced). This is an epic kaleidoscope, a constantly shifting tangle of states. We’re in love, out of love; experiencing love unrequited, giving love, returning it with interest. We’re also in ourselves, in our beds, at our best or brought low by it. It’s visceral. It’s essential. It’s fucking everything, the whole fucking point. When I proposed to Fleur, I wrote an accompanying letter. In that, I borrowed from Alain Badiou, for whom “Love is a quest for truth.” It’s a line given fresh resonance by this collection of songs. And it’s a collection of songs that gives the most important thing in any life exactly the attention it deserves. So yeah, Magnetic Fields “succeeded”. This is a masterpiece.

Getting 3 stars only due to the 'creativity'. It's interesting.... Wouldn't listen to this again, not for me.

Som med många längre album på den här listan, så ligger det säkert en perfekt platta gömd här. Som den nu är så har den en del filler men många bra stunder också

69 - nudge, nudge, wink, wink - love songs. It would have been nice if they hadn't left quality control to the listeners. Because I'm very sure there is an album's worth of good love songs on this. But very definitely not over three albums' worth.

Too long

Got a minor heart attack when I saw the length of this album. Took me most of the workday to get through it, with various interruptions between, meaning I probably missed some songs completely, and heard others like 3 times. This album leaves me with two polarizing emotions. On one hand I am actually a bit impressed that it wasn't worse than it was. There were a handful of actually decent songs in there, and none of the songs ever hit complete rock bottom. On the other hand this wasn't an album I enjoyed at all in any way. It just dragged on forever, and I kept looking at the track list and counting the songs left until it was done. Making an album of 69 songs surely makes it stand out simply because it is long, but I'm not sure that's why you want people to notice it. Maybe they're thinking "all publicity is good publicity". Because if they actually think they've made an album with 69 songs worthy of showing the world, I think they're a bit delusional. This is definitely not a formula that respects the listeners time, nor guarantees any type of quality. Quantity over quality is certainly true for this one. Overall not as bad as I had feared, but the whole records is mostly a blur and I won't revisit it or recommend it to anyone.

I'm done! I'm finally fucking done with this album. I read the wikipedia "I decided I'd write one hundred love songs as a way of introducing myself to the world. Then I realized how long that would be. So I settled on sixty-nine" That's all you need to know. It sounds like someone came up with as many songs as he could and just published all of them, stream of consiousness style. Maybe there is a 2-3 star album in here but for not valuing the listeners time one iota this is a 1 star. I regret listening to all of it.

Usually for boring albums I would give it a 3 or a 2 for wasting my time. This is so boring and lasts 3 hours! Nobody should listen to this and it does not deserve to be on this list just because it has the funny number!

Some were fine, but way too long

57/100.

There is a 5 star album in here somewhere but a bit too much filler. Kudos for the ambition though!

Strange music.

Some days on doing this project really test your resolve, I feel like this is going to be one of them. 12 Songs in and it's already all blending together and sounding the same. The guy's voice just kind of drones on. The songs are fine but I'm not sure I can take 57 more songs... Song 30, I am soooo bored with this. I would have liked this album had it been 10-13 songs like normal. God what a slog. I appreciate the ambition but most bands don't even have anywhere close to 69 good songs total. Why the hell would you try to write 69 songs for one album? Really it was more like 5 songs each done 13 different ways. 2/5

My first reaction was - great, an album I'd not heard before. My second reaction was - it's nearly three hours long! I don't think I can play this many times before I'm presented with the next album... Some of these songs are amusing or interesting, but as a whole the exercise of recording a three hour album of songs about love songs is really rather self-indulgent. Having said that, maybe it's something I'll come back to.

Wow! Not sure what to think of this grandiose project. It had humor but didn’t really feel developed and fully maturated. It seemed more a collection of 69 poems. Most of these had clever wordplay and quirky twists but musically felt underdeveloped, more analogous to a poem with imagery and simple rhymes but musically had oversimplified repetitive melodies. I don’t think I’d ever want to listen to this album in its entirety again but the subjects and ‘songs’ are interesting and quirky enough that individually I wouldn’t mind hearing them again. Interestingly most of these songs are not love songs but more unloved songs. I’m not convinced based on these songs that the singer ever has been in love but these feel like a bunch of painful separations without deeper love and passion.

No - not 3 hours mostly the same music. Imagine, you are listening to this on a kichen - radio -- this will bring you to suicide thoughts. Once again: who is responsible collecting the albums for the 1001 list ???

Reno Dakota was my favorite song. I listened to the first disc and it was ok overall. But I’m not going to listen to three hours of this band.

If you set out to make almost three hours of music, not all of it is going to be good. I really didn't mind some of it, even if the lyrics and rhyme schemes were sometimes repetitive, but there were a lot of duds and no diamonds in the rough. "How Fucking Romantic" was beyond horrible, "Punk Love" was just the same words and melody repeated a ton, and "Washington, D.C." was basically a joke song. At first I was thinking I’d give this 2 or (maybe) even 3 stars, but most of the decent songs are in the first half of the album, so the back half was all downhill.

My second time listening to this monstrosity. It would have really pissed me off if it was a work day today, but thankfully I was travelling cross-US so I had time to kill with this rather extensive record keeping me company. It’s good music, a bit too indie for my liking, but nothing spectacular and of course two hours longer than it needs to be. Time Enough For Rocking When We’re Old was my favourite, it reminded me of Crash Test Dummies.

Discovering that the godawful book of love song by Gavin James was a cover is a true mindfuck. This is easily one of the longest albums on the list, and kind of hard to judge it as a regular album because of it. 69 love songs is what it says on the tin, with no broader overarching theme or motive besides just writing a whole lot of stand alone love songs. For a 3 hour album it never really gets boring, having 3 vocalists and a huge variety in instruments and approaches to songmaking makes every track at least interesting. The entire album just kind of sucks you in and gently flies by as you fall in and out of focusing on the individual songs. I liked a lot of the tracks here, too many to count. I'm really happy to have listened this album but it will probably take a long time to visit it again.

Far to long.. 12 song will be enough

This was so boldly bland and uninteresting that my main thought about halfway through was "Why is this still happening? Why did this collection deserve to be 3 hours long". The voices are flat and dull. The wordplay and wit barely exists. I get the feeling this might be beloved by people really into NPR, though. I didn't care for it at all.

Too good but too long

Listening to music is supposed to be an enjoyable experience, not a chore. This was most definitely a chore, a slog, an exhausting experience! I’m sure it seemed a great idea to them at the time but the saying ‘quality over quantity’ really does apply here. There were some elements of promise but this was just swamped by the number of appallingly poor songs. And whilst it’s commendable to use various music styles and instruments it’s really not necessary to try all of them on the same album. I’m giving this 2 stars but a large chunk of that is to reward my efforts in having to listen to it all.

Here’s how the meeting at the record company should have gone: MF: How do you like our demo? MF record company: There’s some good stuff on there, we suggest the best 12 tracks make it on to the album, and you ditch the rest. MF: Yes, agreed, that makes sense.

OK, so it wasn’t quite as bad as the write-up promised, and there’s something charming about it. But other than the odd witty lyric and occasional musical interest, his voice isn’t that strong and it’s just too long to be anything other than tortuous (and I only listened to maybe two thirds of it). Bonus point for high level albeit misguided ambition and putting the hours in.

I find double albums rarely justify their length, so I wasn't too excited about this monster. There are some really good songs in there, some catchy melodies, great lyrics and moments of humor, all of which would be memorable if they weren't buried under mounds of filler. Some tracks are just forgettable, some are too twee, some are cringe worthy attempts at humor, and some don't even pretend to be more than filler. The good moments would make a great album. Maybe even a great double album! But I shouldn't have to go digging through so much dirt to find the gems, and you sure as hell don't get bonus points for it. It actually made me pretty angry to listen to.

If I'm going to listen to 69 love songs over 3 CDs I need them to be well sung and well played. Unfortunately... So... how to score this? -1 for excessive length, -1 for the poor vocals, -1 for the awful guitar work, -1 'cos the band seems to be simply "going through the motions". I'll stop there 'cos I can't give it less than 1.

Sehr unterschiedliche Songs. Allein die Masse von 69 Songs ist erschlagend. Vielleicht irgendwann nochmal komplett hören. 3/5

Meh

Charming, but 3hrs is crazy. Cool concept, but fatigue set in quickly

There's a certain brilliance to this album. Also a certain ridiculousness. I really enjoyed some of it, and the parts that didn't do it so much for me at least came in shorts spurts. I probably won't ever listen to this start-to-finish again, but there will certainly be songs that stay with me.

Jag brukar höra om albumen massa men orkade bara en gång med denna, inte för den är dålig jag gillade den väldigt mycket men det är ytterst svårt att hitta tid i dagen för den. Jag ser inte heller detta som ett låt album jag tycker allt går väldigt bra i varandra så har svårt att hitta funktionen för den men bra är det.

This has some great moments - I already loved Yeah Oh Yeah and the Book of Love especially - some of it washes over me. Some of it is almost purposefully annoying/kitsch, like Zebra or the boudoir/medieval track towards the end. I think it needs repeat listens for more songs to reveal themselves to me. All My Little Words, Promises of Eternity, Papa Was a Rodeo all have promise in this regard. But it's so long!

I know it’s alluded to in the title, but this is ridiculously long. I’m not listening to all of this.

This is a 3 disc album and I am more than good after listening to the first disc. I guess some people like this. I found it boring as shit musically. It's definitely poetic in delivery, an album of love songs title 69, but it's fuckin' garbage music. 0/5 if I could, but I'll have to settle for a 1/5. Get me the fuck out of here.

It's an eclectic mix, and I'm not sure if I'm in favour of the massive 69 songs, but there are plenty of nuggets of gold amongst them and I enjoyed listening to it.

So, there are just way too many songs on here to listen to in one day, unless it was my job to do so. I listened to about a dozen and then quit because even though I am retired, I do still have a life. Anyway, for the most part I did enjoy what I heard, although Stephin Merritt’s voice wasn’t my favorite, especially when at times he seems to have a really loose relationship with the concept of pitch. I guess I will give this one a three based on my limited sampling.

Some good songs, some average, some not so good - but 69 songs on one LP spanning almost 3 hours? Just too much 'filler', reduced to 1 LP would have likely have seen me double my rating.

already listened and love

The f*cking temerity. What collection of troll critics landed this three hour long concept album on this list. I have lots to do today...guess the majority of this Saturday will be spent getting my business accounts all balanced whilst pining for love like a beheaded fowl. It's fine. F*ck. Turns out it's still a really interesting if resentable album.

While I appreciate and respect the specific number of songs on this album, three hours of this is a bit much. I'm deducting a star for the length. Other than that, some of the songs were good, some were not. Album #2 had the best tracks overall, in my opinion. Favorite song: The Book of Love. This one is actually really, really good. Least Favorite Song: Zebra

Too long.

I'd give this shit a 0 if I could.

*Astronomy will have to be revised I don't believe in the sun How could it shine down on everyone? And never shine on me* It's an interesting piece. It's 69 songs! Most of them just keep an idea and go with it - price of them being short, and being one among 68 others. Some are interesting. Some are less. But it's really hard to get through all 69 of them in one day. *So there's one thing I crave When my days become ho-hum and blah I want a zebra* And then it went on, and on, and on. And the music got weirder. And at one point I got motion sick. And I'm suspecting half of the experience is so that they can catch you out, unaware. It's not quite perfect, and it's so long I'd be a bit wary of giving it a 5. And I can't even feel like I can fit a relisten for it, like for so many albums. But I think a 4 fits the album well enough. Maybe one day. It's just missing yet Another Love Song.

This was interesting, but im not going to listen to 3 hours it

Favorite Track: Absolutely Cuckoo

So this is a project more than an album to savor there are some good individual songs and the breadth of "love" and its meaning is well explored lyrically... its not something I would want to move through a second time despite this being a huge accomplishment I thought it would have more individual songs I would want to go back and savor.

Really long, could be decent, could be gay. Overall was alright

Hahahahahahahahahahahahagagagagagagagahagahahahaha

You'd think an album revolved around a sex position would be better

the title is a tongue in cheeks reference.

It's fun, too long, witty, unevenly sung, heartfelt, and too damn long. It's the weirdest thing, a three-star five-star album

first of all i aint listening to all that, second of all could it deserve a 2? sure. Did i take one off because the album is 2 hours and 45 minutes long? yes.

Imagine the level of self-worship that it takes to think you can write 69 love songs and put them all on an album. This same someone clearly never heard the phrase “less is more.” I wouldn’t want to listen to this many love songs all at once by someone with talent like Freddie Mercury or David Bowie so this album never stood a chance. It took three sittings to finish and at no point was I enjoying myself.

Phew, did it, though it took me three days! Not every song on this is a winner, but that seems a bit much to expect - there are enough of them that are to merit a positive rating. Shirley Simms has a beautiful voice - sounds quite like Kirsty MacColl. The tracks she's lead on are among the strongest on the album. Merritt's voice is a sonorous bass, also nice to listen to.

The songs are fine but this was a slog to get through

Ei jumalauta

En su generalidad es muy bueno. Notable calidad y muy pragmático, abarcativo de muchos géneros. Al ser tan largo también tiene mucho relleno que sobra, el 3er disco ya está prácticamente de más (o quizás me cansé).

4 stars. A remarkably good and inventive album considering the runtime

some are gems, others completely forgettable favorite track: no one will ever love you

Just too long

Some good songs watered down with a lot of meh.

This album has 69 tracks and is 2 hr 45 min. Wow. I did get through it all, but only once. I was familiar with a few songs, mostly because Spotify chose to plug them (or maybe KEXP did?): "Absolutely Cuckoo", "All My Little Words", "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side". The vocals can sometimes be a little too drawl'y for my taste, but the melodies are ok.

I'm biased because I discovered thos album early on while dating my now wife... so it played a big part as the soundtrack to our relationship. But, I also do like th3 ambition of covering love in all it's forms, from sweet to sad, and from silly to... horny.

This ultimately suffers under the weight of its own conceit. If it had been, I don't know, even 39 love songs, it would have easily been a 4 or 5. But there's plenty that varies from filler to bad that the great songs (I Think I Need a New Heart, I Don't Want to Get Over You, Papa Was a Rodeo - and so many others) get totally drowned out.

a lot of interesting stuff here that I enjoyed! Just not enough to justify 3 hours long haha It's too bad this wasn't edited a bit more.

A mixed bag of tracks here. Some I enjoyed. Some I passed on. A lot of humour, though which made me smile!

Nah....get out of here. A 2 hour 45 minute, 69 song album just flat out isn't necessary. Just release three different albums (or MAYBE even cut some filler- what a novel idea). Male lead singer's deep voice is unnerving as well. Isn't the worst on this list by far but come on now. 4/10 (2/5)

Most of these songs are good. Just depends on who sings them.

有很多不同的風格在裡面，有覺得特別的組合、段落或演唱方式。但沒有讓我印象深刻的歌。

for the sheer audacity

Thought I was going to hate and I was very wrong. Really good.

I like the idea, the idea is fun and i think almost all songs are like a good 3. I listened to disk 1 and it’s good background music. Nothing reeally exceptional, but then again this is not about that. It really captures the generic lovesong genre.

This album is really going to test the aged old saying of quantity does not equal quality. Let’s see. 3 hours is going to be a long chunk out of my day. Track one grabbed me, I liked it, following on the album had some nice moments like I don’t want to get over you, the one you really love and Fido, your leash is too long. Overall through it was full of filler and was like a poor Leonard Cohen album, lots of love but poor story telling. It went on too long. I feel with 10 of the best tracks this could be good. Favourite song: Absolutely Cuckoo Least favourite: 60 out of the 69 tracks Album artwork: Simple yet smart cover.

Moi quand l'album m'a été généré: haha, funny number Moi en ouvrant l'album: QUOI?!! YA VRAIMENT 69 CHANSONS? ÇA DURE FUCKING 3H DE TEMPS??!!! Moi vers le tiers de l'album: 🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮

Too long

Inte alls tokigt. Det som är tokigt är att den är för lång. Hade det varit 20 låtar så kanske det blivit en fyra eller femma.

Okay I only listened to the first 9 songs which is why I will give this a neutral rating. I actually did not hate it as much as I thought it would, but I will not rate any higher because the premise of this album is so ridiculous I cannot be bothered to listen to any more than what I did.

I can’t say why but I loved this! It hit me on a day where I was having to drive a lot and really helped pass the time in the car. It’s weird, no one should ever do a project like this, but it was great.

I didn't dislike this enough to skip any tracks, but I also didn't like it enough to particularly enjoy it. I got through the entire album though, so there's that I guess.

WAY TOOOOOOOOOOO LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!

Meh

Loved this one

Epic release. Multiple genres mixed throughout. Would love to revisit at different pace

Schrecklich

Quite depressive, melancholic music. A couple of very nice, beautiful songs, but overall often annoying and definitely 2 discs too long.

3 full lp's with an abundance of stellar pop tunes and lyrics on the subject of love in all its aspects. Brilliant.

Delightfully weird enough to keep me interested for most of the absurd running time. I likely will never listen to this again, but for a somewhat harebrained gimmick I’d say they pulled it off.

This is a clear 3.5 for me: the styles, instruments (and vocals) run the gamut, with a tongue in cheek look at the variations of love. Compelling enough. The half step up is more a celebration of making it through without becoming disgruntled.

Quirky mix of genres. Varied instrumentation about love in all forms. I'm never going to listen to this again.

Oof. The strength of this triple album is also it's weakness: variety. If I could select the songs, I could probably make a single 4* album. But there were also a lot of 2* songs. In the end, there's just too much stuff I don't enjoy to rank this any higher than 3*.

Hideous

Some gems tucked in between some strange and mediocre songs

Self indulgent and very average indeed.