69 Love Songs＜Silver Vinyl＞

The Magnetic Fieldsによる稀代の名盤『69 Love Songs』の25周年記念盤がリリース。ヴァイナル用にリマスターされ、シルヴァー・カラーの6枚の10インチにプレス。

インディ・ロック・シーン稀代の才能、Stephin Merritt率いるThe Magnetic Fields。『69 Love Songs』は、ラヴではなくラヴ・ソングについて書かれた全69曲を収録するという前代未聞のコンセプトを持つ1999年リリースの6枚目のアルバム。シンセ・ポップからギター・ポップ、カントリー、オーケストラルサウンドまで、多くのゲストを交え様々な趣向の曲が並び、まさにMerrittの集大成とも呼べる内容。多くのアーティストにカバーされている「The Book of Love」を始め珠玉の名曲を多数収録した代表作。

As the sprawling magnitude of its cheeky title suggests, 69 Love Songs is Stephin Merritt's most ambitious as well as most fully realized work to date, a three-disc epic of classically chiseled pop songs that explore both the promise and pitfalls of modern romance through the jaundiced eye of an irredeemable misanthrope. A true A-to-Z catalog of touchingly bittersweet love songs that runs the gamut from tender ballads to pithy folk tunes to bluesy vamps, the sheer scope of the record allows all of Merritt's musical personas to converge -- the regular use of guest vocalists recalls his work as the 6ths, the romantic fatalism suggests the Gothic Archies project, and the stately melodies evoke the Future Bible Heroes. The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts, however -- for all of Merritt's scathing wit and icy detachment, there's a depth and sensitivity to these songs largely absent from his past work, and each one of these 69 tracks approaches l'amour from refreshing angles, galvanizing the love song form with rare sophistication and elegance. Naturally, given a project of this size there's the occasional bit of filler, but all in all, 69 Love Songs maintains a remarkable consistency throughout, and the highlights ("I Don't Believe in the Sun," "All My Little Words," "Asleep and Dreaming," "Busby Berkeley Dreams," and "Acoustic Guitar," to name just a few) are jaw-droppingly superb. Also available as three individual releases, 69 Love Songs was nevertheless conceived as a whole and is best absorbed as such, with all of its twists and turns taken in stride; despite its three-hour length, the music boasts the craftsmanship and economy that remain the hallmarks of classic American pop songwriting, a tradition Merritt upholds even as he subverts the formula in new and brilliant ways. ~ Jason Ankeny