Quickies (album)
Quickies is the twelfth studio album by The Magnetic Fields. The album consists of 28 songs, each of which is between 0:17 and 2:35 in length.[2] For the album's conceit, Magnetic Fields singer and songwriter Stephin Merritt was influenced by the short fiction of Lydia Davis and the writing of his own book of Scrabble poetry.[3]
| Quickies | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | May 29, 2020 | |||
| Recorded | Cottage Sounds, Decibelle, Mad Oak[1] | |||
| Genre | Indie rock, indie pop | |||
| Length | 46:40 | |||
| Label | Nonesuch | |||
| Producer | Stephin Merritt | |||
| The Magnetic Fields chronology | ||||
| ||||
Release
Quickies is available as a box set of five 7" records or as a CD. The US release of the CD was delayed to June 19.[4] A single LP release was done for Record Store Day of the same year, pressed on pink vinyl and featuring a bonus track on Side A - "The Witches' Fly".
Reception
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 74/100[5] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [6] |
| And It Don't Stop |  [7] |
| Beats Per Minute | 78%[8] |
| Exclaim! | 8/10[9] |
| MusicOMH | [10] |
| Pitchfork | 7.3/10[3] |
| Slant Magazine | [11] |
Quickies was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 74, based on 11 reviews.[5]
Marc Hogan from Pitchfork said that the album "thrives" on the shortness of its songs,[3] and Slant Magazine stated that Merritt "[flourishes] under the constraints he sets for himself".[11] In his Substack-published "Consumer Guide" column, Robert Christgau singled out the following tracks as highlights – "I Wish I Were a Prostitute Again", "My Stupid Boyfriend", "Come, Life, Shaker Life!", and "The Best Cup of Coffee in Tennessee" – and summarized the album as "28 songs in 48 minutes, too few as clever as you'd hope, several rather nice, more than that stupider than this very smart man believes".[7]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Stephin Merritt
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Castles of America" | 0:34 |
| 2. | "The Biggest Tits in History" | 2:12 |
| 3. | "The Day the Politicians Died" | 1:57 |
| 4. | "Castle Down a Dirt Road" | 1:47 |
| 5. | "Bathroom Quickie" | 0:46 |
| 6. | "My Stupid Boyfriend" | 2:01 |
| 7. | "Love Gone Wrong" | 2:13 |
| 8. | "Favorite Bar" | 1:12 |
| 9. | "Kill a Man a Week" | 0:59 |
| 10. | "Kraftwerk in a Blackout" | 1:49 |
| 11. | "When She Plays the Toy Piano" | 2:06 |
| 12. | "Death Pact (Let's Make A)" | 0:17 |
| 13. | "I've Got a Date with Jesus" | 2:16 |
| 14. | "Come, Life, Shaker Life!" | 2:35 |
| 15. | "(I Want to Join A) Biker Gang" | 2:21 |
| 16. | "Rock 'n' Roll Guy" | 2:33 |
| 17. | "You've Got a Friend in Beelzebub" | 1:13 |
| 18. | "Let's Get Drunk Again (And Get Divorced)" | 1:15 |
| 19. | "The Best Cup of Coffee In Tennessee" | 2:07 |
| 20. | "When the Brat Upstairs Got a Drum Kit" | 1:52 |
| 21. | "The Price You Pay" | 1:52 |
| 22. | "The Boy in the Corner" | 0:55 |
| 23. | "Song of the Ant" | 0:43 |
| 24. | "I Wish I Had Fangs and a Tail" | 1:51 |
| 25. | "Evil Rhythm" | 1:47 |
| 26. | "She Says Hello" | 1:01 |
| 27. | "The Little Robot Girl" | 2:11 |
| 28. | "I Wish I Were a Prostitute Again" | 2:15 |
Personnel
The Magnetic Fields[1]
- Stephin Merritt – ARP Axxe synthesizer, Veillette Avante 12-string acoustic guitar, banjoleles, cigar box ukulele, electric guitar, Mellotron, Moog instruments, Octave Cat synthesizer, unprogrammed drum machines, vocals
- Sam Davol – wine box cello, Infinite Jets
- Claudia Gonson – vocals, one-hand piano, cigar box percussion
- Shirley Simms – vocals, three-chord autoharp, Omnichord
- John Woo – unamplified electric guitar, cigar box guitar
Other Personnel[1]
- Chris Ewen – prepared piano, Mellotron
- Benny Grotto – Optigan percussion
- Daniel Handler – accordion, celeste
- Pinky Weitzman – cigar box violin, Stroh violin
References
- "The Magnetic Fields – Quickies". Discogs. 15 May 2020.
- "The Magnetic Fields". Nonesuch Records.
- "The Magnetic Fields:Quickies Album Review". Pitchfork.
- "Magnetic Fields Quickies Vinyl Box Set Now Available". Nonesuch Records. 29 May 2020.
- "Metacritic Review". Metacritic. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
- Thomas, Fred. "AllMusic Review". AllMusic. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
- Christgau, Robert (September 9, 2020). "Consumer Guide: September, 2020". And It Don't Stop. Substack. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
- Pickard, Joshua (May 21, 2020). "Beats Per Minute Review". Beats Per Minute. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
- Haughey, Ryan (May 15, 2020). "The Magnetic Fields Master Short but Sweet Storytelling on 'Quickies'". Exclaim!. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
- Horton, Ross (May 28, 2020). "MusicOMH Review". MusicOMH. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
- Wilson, Seth (May 14, 2020). "The Magnetic Fields's Quickies Is a Deft Collection of Mini-Character Studies". Slant Magazine. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
- "Album Top 40 slágerlista – 2020. 23. hét" (in Hungarian). MAHASZ. Retrieved 12 June 2020.