Day 0883 - 69 Love Songs

The Magnetic Fields “69 Love Songs” (1999)

My first thought on reading about this one was “why would anyone do this?!” both to themselves and to the listener.   

 

The title is not a misnomer or an exaggeration, there are actually 69 songs.   

Three discs.  

Nearly 3 hours of music to work through.  It is a veritable musical marathon.
 

It’s that marathon aspect which is offputting rather than the actual music, which is not unenjoyable for the most part, it covers a range of genres and styles.  To my ears the ‘base sound’ is an indie pop-rock akin to the Violent Femmes, but the music goes from 60s hippy folk to 80s synth pop, stopping in along with way to visit jazz, reggae, morose Leonard Cohen style ballads (well rendered with singer Stephin Merritt’s deep baritone), country, and 70s pop rock. 

A lot of the songs clock in well under 2 minutes, which is something of a relief given the number of tracks, but can also make the listening experience a bit dizzying and harder to latch onto.

Day 0832 - First Band on the Moon

Cardigans "First Band on the Moon" (1996)

This is a deceptive wee album (and band).   On the face of it, it sounds like an upbeat mix of disco, funk and pop, like a more naive take on Chic.   On closer inspection there is a lot more going on, with the perky music often acting as background to rather depressing lyrics.  On hit single "Lovefool", the catchy danceable track features the rather bleak line "I don't care if you really care as long as you don't go".   I've always quite enjoyed that sort of juxtaposition; a sad message presented in a bright and shiny wrapper.

A couple of the band members Peter Svensson and Magnus Sveningsson, had previously been in metal bands, and there are a couple of riffs here that, with a distortion pedal added, would rock quite heavily.   The band cover Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", and their own song "Heartbreaker" features the main riff from the song "Black Sabbath" from the album "Black Sabbath" by the band.... er well I forget their name.   It starts with the menacing riff but quickly switches into doe-eyed 60s-esque baroque pop before moving back to fade out in Black Sabby sludginess.

This band is definitely much more than just a one-trick pony and this album is more than that one song from a Leo DiCaprio film.