"As a result, 50 Song Memoir is an immersive, incisive listen, despite its avoidance of traditionally memoiristic details (we never, for example, learn the names of Merritt's parents, whether he has siblings, what it was like trying to follow-up a breakthrough album, etc). The themes that Merritt addresses over multiple songs become the album's guiding lights. "All the young dudes of 25/Caught diseases, few survived," he sings in "'90 Dreaming in Tetris," before explaining, "We expected nuclear war/What should we take precautions for?" The AIDS crisis influences many of these songs, adding an ominous shadow to the darker tracks and a mournful tone to the love songs".