LOVE IS LIKE...
(INSERT 69 SONGS HERE):
Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields

by Peter Gorman

Stephin Merritt is ambitious. This is a safe statement. His various bands have scarcely sold any records, yet he has just released a three CD box set of new material. Merritt says in the liner notes that he expects people to think of it as a "large collection of singles." It's definitely large, for Merritt is his own songwriting factory. The only products are love songs, but they come in all colors and sizes, and you're sure to find many that match your tastes. But to call 69 Love Songs a collection of singles implies product of the highest quality, and the box set is more of a enjoyable mess than the elaborate work of a craftsman.

Merritt decided to dedicate himself to songcraft at the start of his recording career. There were two non-traditional songs on his first Magnetic Fields release, Distant Plastic Trees, but after that Merrit wanted the world to always sing with him, and melody has never been hard to find in any of his songs. It's possible that Merritt never topped himself after his first two Magnetic Fields releases, when Susan Anway sounded both inspired and weary singing Merritt's delicate tunes. Anway left the band because she could no longer afford the airfare to the East Coast from her Phoenix home - a story possible only in Indieland - and Merritt took over the vocals. Merritt is sometimes a decent singer, sometimes a lousy one, with a bass voice that is sub-par Johnny Cash and about equal with Leonard Cohen. But unlike Cohen, Merritt refuses to limit the melodic range of songs to match his voice. He wanted to write songs that Sinatra if not Rod Stewart could cover; the song always came first, and if he couldn't sing it or play it maybe someone else would, preferably someone with a golden voice.

1994's The Charm of the Highway Strip succeeded as a Magnetic Fields record largely because Merritt did limit the songs. He confined himself to the edges of country music without actually going there, producing a suite of travel songs that matched his vocal range and emotional grasp. Merritt's output then became prolific. Two albums in 1994 were followed by two more in 1995, and in the liner notes Merritt hinted at future releases from his then-still-unheard side projects. All of the releases were good though not spectacular, although Wasp's Nests by the 6ths was a highlight, a series of guest vocalists backed with Merritt's intricate synthesizer arrangements.

By 1996 Merritt was expected to continue releasing two albums a year. Instead the next three years saw only the release of one album, this by Merritt's 80s- style pop band Future Bible Heroes, and the release of a EP by the unfortunately aptly named Gothic Archies. There seemed no explanation for the delay. Now comes the release of 69 Love Songs, and it turns out that Merritt was doing what he had been doing all along, he had just stopped releasing so many records. But here is every one he held back, nearly three hours worth of material on three CDs that would have equaled five in length of earlier Magnetic Fields records. Merritt considered composing a 100-song musical, then cut it back to 69 and called it a box set. The number 69 was arrived at because Merritt liked the way it looked, and its arbitrariness defined Merritt's approach to the whole project. He decided to put the songs in alphabetical order, rejecting this idea only after he decided the album didn't flow in an alphabetical way. It hardly mattered; the CDs still don't flow, either as a box set or as individuals. Nothing defines the set except a willingness - or call it a compulsion - to play with musical styles.

Ultimately 69 Love Songs is a numbers game. Four vocalists sing six songs apiece, with Merritt singing the other 45. Merritt plays over 90 instruments on the record, but only if distinctions are made between types of ukuleles and accordions. There aren't 69 songs either, more like 59; 10 of the tracks are between 25 and 70 seconds long. Much of it works, inevitably some of it doesn't - the price paid for messing about in genres. Merritt's favorite music is pop in its various forms, so it's not surprising that he has a better way with music than with words. Occasionally he finds his way to a new and improved lyric; more often he's trying twist cliches, and he does all right by it most of the time, though he can be too clever. One of my favorite songs is called "The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure," which seemed a moving lament until I read in the liner notes that Ferdinand was a linguist in Switzerland during the early 1900s. I know, linguists are people too, but I only forgive Merritt's pretensions because in the song he shoots the guy in the name of songwriting legends Holland-Dozier-Holland, so maybe his heart is in the right place, if not his head.

One can play the game of whittling the collection down to a single or double CD, but it still won't flow, and even if it did there would be little consensus on the songs that make the final cut. I enjoy "Blue You" which sounds like John Cale covering a Tom Waits ballad, but that may not be your idea of fun. I hear "Love is Like Jazz" as a bad joke, but maybe the joke's on me. The afrobeat number "World Love" is described by Merritt as being "the typical, average song on `Afropop Worldwide' except with Leonard Cohen singing on top, advocating world revolution and alcoholism." Who could resist such a concept? I enjoy it myself, and about 25 other songs on this record, I dislike a dozen, am indifferent to the rest. As a whole it's easy to admire 69 Love Songs and difficult to love it.

Merritt is a major talent who should be in a real band. The Magnetic Fields strive to be that band, but the end product still sounds like Merritt as solo artist. Because he uses occasional guest vocalists he gets away with filing his music under a band's name, but much of the time even Merritt sounds like a guest on his own material. He writes songs as if it were his nine-to-five job, working at the alternative Tin Pan Alley. He's very good at it, too. In the end listening to 69 Love Songs is like listening to a free-form radio station, probably a public one down below 92 on your FM dial and programmed by an aloof college kid. Guaranteed no repeats for three hours! Too bad it will still cost you a charitable donation of about 40 bucks. Fanatics won't mind paying up, but others should seek out the earlier Magnetic Fields' releases Distant Plastic Trees and The Wayward Bus (available on one CD), The Charm of the Highway Strip, and the 6ths' LP Wasps' Nests; all four will cost the same as 69 Love Songs, and return a higher rate of pleasure for your ears.