Read the Warning Label
By Andrew Clayman
Published in Chicago Innerview, March 2008
One of the more memorable tracks on the new Magnetic Fields album is “California Girls,” a bouncy number in which an embittered, female outcast plots the battle-axe murders of some Hilton-esque, Hollywood tramps. It’s the type of brilliant perversity we’ve come to expect from the mind of Stephin Merritt, but if you think the song has anything to do with his own recent move from New York to L.A., you would be gravely mistaken.
“It’s a character driven song. It’s not reflective of my own opinion in any way,” Merritt mutters in his distinctive Eeyore baritone. It’s a response delivered with a hint of condescension, but it serves as a good reminder that Merritt-- unlike other iconic mopesters like Morrissey or Elliott Smith— writes in more of a theatrical manner than a confessional one. The sadness and dark humor are no less effective, but the man behind the words remains considerably more mysterious.
For example, it turns out that Merritt—the supposed King Curmudgeon of New York’s indie-pop scene—is thoroughly enjoying his unlikely new digs in sunny Los Angeles.
“There’s some great music stores here,” he says. “And the film scene is, if anything, even better than New York. Tonight, I’m going to see the John Barrymore version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the silent movie theater . . . where they serve cupcakes. So, I like L.A.”
Cupcakes aside, Merritt has never been quite as huggable as most of his ‘90s twee contemporaries, nor as overtly sensitive as his current disciples like Jens Lekman and Zach Condon (Beirut). When it comes to crafting a great pop record, however, there are still only a select few in Stephin Merritt’s class.
This is showcased again on his latest effort, Distortion, the eighth album from Merritt’s flagship band, the Magnetic Fields (he also records as the 6ths, Future Bible Heroes, and Gothic Archies). Though Distortion introduces a whole new type of production style for the Fields, it also continues Merritt’s string of records with a gimmicky theme.
“Every album has a subject-- not just mine,” he explains. “The difference is that I tend to use more specific titles than other people, at least recently-- with 69 Loves Songs (1999), i (2004), and Distortion. I think of Distortion as a sort of warning label. I mean, nobody can complain that the record is distorted, because it says it is right on the front cover. Similarly, with 69 Love Songs, nobody could complain that it was too long or that it was all love songs.”
That being said, even the “warning label” didn’t fully prepare some fans for the bombardment of feedback that runs the entirety of Distortion’s 13 tracks. The songs themselves—vocalized both by Merritt and returning collaborator Shirley Simms—are as catchy and quirky as anything from the Fields’ canonized magnum opus, 69 Love Songs. The production, however, comes straight from the 1985 playbook of influential Scottish rockers The Jesus and Mary Chain.
“Well, I wanted to make the record quickly, so I thought that (the JAMC album) Psychocandy would be a great thing to emulate,” Merritt says. “I’ve grown up with the sound of distorted guitars, and, being a bit of an experimentalist, I’ve done a lot of distorting of other instruments, as well. Of course, you can never tell that, because your ears just assume it’s a distorted guitar. So, this album, we’re making that explicit.”
Ironically—or perhaps appropriately-- Merritt himself is a sufferer of hyperacusis, a hearing condition in which any loud sounds are actually heard as distortion.
“That’s the joke of this record,” he says. “It sounds like all music sounds to me.”
As a further result of Merritt’s hearing issues, the Distortion tour—including a six show, weekend residency at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music—will be completely distortion-less, with longtime bandmembers Claudia Gonson (keyboards), Sam Davol (cello), and John Woo (guitar) joining Merritt and his bouzouki for some stripped-down, career-spanning engagements.
“We’re doing two different sets, with only a few songs overlapping,” Merritt says. “Even with this short tour, we would get really bored doing the same songs again and again. We’re easily bored people.”
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