Live at the Volkstheater

The Magnetic Fields: Just normal love madness

The New York indie pop duo The Magnetic Fields around Stephin Merritt (m.).

(Bild: Druidic.org)

Exactly 25 years ago, the Magnetic Fields wrote one of the best and most enduring concept triple albums in music history with "69 Love Songs". Frontman Stephin Merritt and band are coming to Vienna's Volkstheater twice these days to present the cult work live. At the Blue Bird Festival at Porgy & Bess, Merritt answered our questions.

To describe Stephin Merritt as quirky would be to miss the point. The introverted New Yorker with a penchant for special eccentricity has often rethought US indie pop with his band The Magnetic Fields, unknowingly even venturing into the mainstream. Anyone who was present at Vienna's Theater Akzent in 2022 or at the Blue Bird Festival at Porgy & Bess or Graz's Dom im Berg in 2023 will know that the mixture of his baritone voice, intricate lyrics that meander between humor and debunking and his band's finely accentuated backing music have a special place in the scene. The fact that the Magnetic Fields' concerts are comparatively gentle is due to his tinnitus, which the 59-year-old once contracted during a performance by Einstürzende Neubauten.

Life's work with cognac
Merritt has released twelve albums with his band to date, but the masterpiece of his life came right in the middle. Exactly 25 years ago, "69 Love Songs" was released, a triple album and monumental work, which the quirky frontman wrote for the most part while drinking cognac in a gay bar in Manhattan, where he sat every evening and gave free rein to his creativity. In 172 minutes, however, the numbers fetishist does not explain the many facets of love to us, but puts the cart before the horse. This includes the murder of a wife and various transgressions and ruptures in the larger context of love. None other than Peter Gabriel covered the song "The Book Of Love" on the triple album, which appeared in the final episode of "Scrubs" and, by Merritt's own admission, financed a house in New York.

"I actually wanted to do the anniversary tour after 23 years, because the 69 songs are arranged in the same way on the three albums and 25 is not a meaningful number," Merritt explains to us wryly in the Krone talk, "but in the end we were busy elsewhere and the pandemic threw the plan overboard." Originally, Merritt even wanted to write 100 songs, but then scrapped the idea. "Imagine that! Then we would have to perform three nights per city to play through the album for the anniversary. What additional logistical effort that would have meant. I read about a guy who wrote 199 songs for a concept. God forbid, that sounds exhausting." Merritt likes to break the usual norms of songwriting. There are 15-second and 26-minute songs by the Magnetic Fields. The band sang in English, German and Japanese.

Groundbreaking for the time
"But that's not true. You're only as free as a bird on the first album of your life, from then on you always stick to structures - consciously or unconsciously. Rules give you an end point, they restrict you at least to the extent that you can deal with something at some point." The "69 Love Songs" were groundbreaking not only musically, but also in terms of content. Merritt also looked at love and its complex excesses from a homosexual and bisexual perspective, which was not nearly as common 25 years ago as it is today. "In my world, the gay world, that was already normal. David Bowie and Elton John had been singing about it for decades before that. Then there was the disco movement and cabaret, but I know what you mean. I never had any thoughts of getting ahead with anything, I just wrote."

Merritt's songwriting works predominantly archival. "Songwriting and putting albums together are two different things for me. When I'm working on a new album, I first look through my old files and notes and take something out of there. I didn't have to write the '69 Love Songs' from scratch either, there was already a big base there." Merritt, who in his personal opinion has autistic traits, has little use for nostalgia or exaggerated empathy towards his own music. "What was, that was. So the songs on this triple album are also exciting for me in a live context. We play about ten of them over and over again in normal sets, the 59 others I have to practically relearn for the anniversary shows." Merritt has had a hard time with new songs since the outbreak of the pandemic. Not only has his usual routine been turned upside down, but his usual creativity has also been lacking.

Puzzling through the pandemic
"I've written a lot of songs but haven't finished any. It has to come together at some point, I can't force it. When the knot comes undone, then something new will come along, but I wouldn't say a specific time because I can't possibly predict it." In his house in New York, financed by Peter Gabriel, he experienced other things instead. "Once a friend of mine came to visit with his mother and old grandmother. In the end, they just wanted to deport grandma because they couldn't stand her. So I sat with her for days working on a huge puzzle with a Chiquita banana. But what else was I supposed to do - there was plenty of time."

Twice live at Vienna's Volkstheater
On September 8 and 9, The Magnetic Fields will present their groundbreaking concept album "69 Love Songs" on two evenings at Vienna's Volkstheater. Almost exactly to the day after the release of the work on September 7, 1999. www. oeticket.com still has tickets available for this indie pop highlight, which is definitely not to be missed.