69 love songs

"Pop history is not littered with classic triple albums. All Things Must Pass and Sandinista! are solid doubles with bonus tracks already appended ... Which makes 69 Love Songs, Stephin Merritt's magnum opus, now satisfyingly reissued on vinyl, a singular achievement. Approaching three hours of music, it amounts to a perverse, secret history of popular song, as viewed from late-20th-century lower East Side Manhattan, and was seen by many, on its release in September 1999 as a fantastical fin-de-siecle folly. The Village Voice's Robert Christgau, in a moment of acuity, dispatched an earlier Magnetic Fields album with the apercu "more songs about songs and songs" - an assessment Merritt himself appreciated. "69 Love Songs is not remotely an album about love," he said. "It's an album about love songs, which are very far away from anything to do with love."".

"There's only one question that really needs to be asked of 69 Love Songs: is it a brilliant masterpiece ... it's how pop music should sound, really: so natural and feather-light that you never notice the amount of effort that went into it".

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"Pop history is not littered with classic triple albums. All Things Must Pass and Sandinista! are solid doubles with bonus tracks already appended ... Which makes 69 Love Songs, Stephin Merritt's magnum opus, now satisfyingly reissued on vinyl, a singular achievement. Approaching three hours of music, it amounts to a perverse, secret history of popular song, as viewed from late-20th-century lower East Side Manhattan, and was seen by many, on its release in September 1999 as a fantastical fin-de-siecle folly. The Village Voice's Robert Christgau, in a moment of acuity, dispatched an earlier Magnetic Fields album with the apercu "more songs about songs and songs" - an assessment Merritt himself appreciated. "69 Love Songs is not remotely an album about love," he said. "It's an album about love songs, which are very far away from anything to do with love."".

"There's only one question that really needs to be asked of 69 Love Songs: is it a brilliant masterpiece ...".

Read review