★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
I sort of cheated on this album; I listened to about 1/5 of it a day over several days, not all in one go. I love 69 Love Songs but have found some of the Fields' work to be not as appealing. Some of his albums can be morose or have a sort of sludgy ambiance. But this five-CD box set of a concept album recalls 69 Songs, and not just in its length. A lot of the songs here are as catchy as anything he’s recorded, but even the more measured songs are inviting and intriguing. This is the kind of album that you stop for a while just to think about the song you just heard; by its very concept, each one represents an important moment, a real emotion. There's a lot to unpack. The post-breakup song "Never Again" is so terribly sad: "I won't know what to do / With these houses for you / I’ve built in my head." Of course, with this many songs there are bound to be a few not to your taste. For example, the clanking noise of "The Day I Finally…" grates on me. The other issue I have is Merritt's tendency to hide his vocals, layering them with echo or distortion or just burying them under loud synths. That's fine for some songs, like about learning to play the synthesizer or dancing, but a lot of these lyrics really should be front and center. Favorite tracks: '74: No," "75: My Mama Ain’t," "86: How I Failed Ethics," "93: Me and Fred and Dave and Ted."
