Quickies (album)

2020 studio album by The Magnetic Fields

Quickies

Studio album by

The Magnetic Fields

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
| 50 Song Memoir
(2017)  | Quickies
(2020)  |

|
|

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 concept, 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]

## Release

[edit]

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

[edit]

Professional ratingsAggregate 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 "Consumer Guide," 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

[edit]

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

[edit]

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

## Charts

[edit]

Chart (2020)  | Peak
position

|

Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ)[12] | 27

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c "The Magnetic Fields – Quickies". Discogs. May 15, 2020.
2. ^ "The Magnetic Fields". Nonesuch Records.
3. ^ a b c "The Magnetic Fields:Quickies Album Review". Pitchfork.
4. ^ "Magnetic Fields Quickies Vinyl Box Set Now Available". Nonesuch Records. May 29, 2020.
5. ^ a b "Metacritic Review". Metacritic. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
6. ^ Thomas, Fred. "AllMusic Review". AllMusic. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
7. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (September 9, 2020). "Consumer Guide: September, 2020". And It Don't Stop. Substack. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
8. ^ Pickard, Joshua (May 21, 2020). "Beats Per Minute Review". Beats Per Minute. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
9. ^ Haughey, Ryan (May 15, 2020). "The Magnetic Fields Master Short but Sweet Storytelling on 'Quickies'". Exclaim!. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
10. ^ Horton, Ross (May 28, 2020). "MusicOMH Review". MusicOMH. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
11. ^ a b Wilson, Seth (May 14, 2020). "The Magnetic Fields's Quickies Is a Deft Collection of Mini-Character Studies". Slant Magazine. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
12. ^ "Album Top 40 slágerlista – 2020. 23. hét" (in Hungarian). MAHASZ. Retrieved 12 June 2020.

* v
* t
* e

The Magnetic Fields

* Stephin Merritt
* Claudia Gonson
* Sam Davol
* John Woo
* Shirley Simms

Studio albums|

* Distant Plastic Trees (1991)
* The Wayward Bus (1992)
* The Charm of the Highway Strip (1994)
* Holiday (1994)
* Get Lost (1995)
* 69 Love Songs (1999)
* i (2004)
* Distortion (2008)
* Realism (2010)
* Love at the Bottom of the Sea (2012)
* 50 Song Memoir (2017)
* Quickies (2020)

EPs|

* The House of Tomorrow (1992)

Songs|

* "100,000 Fireflies"
* "The Book of Love"
* "Andrew in Drag"

Related|

* Discography

* v
* t
* e

Stephin Merritt

The Magnetic Fields|

* Distant Plastic Trees
* The Wayward Bus
* The House of Tomorrow
* The Charm of the Highway Strip
* Holiday
* Get Lost
* 69 Love Songs
* i
* Distortion
* Realism
* Love at the Bottom of the Sea
* 50 Song Memoir
* Quickies

The Gothic Archies|

* Looming in the Gloom
* The New Despair
* The Tragic Treasury

The 6ths|

* Wasps' Nests
* Hyacinths and Thistles

Future Bible Heroes|

* Memories of Love
* Eternal Youth
* Partygoing

Soundtracks|

* Eban and Charley
* Pieces of April
* Showtunes

Related articles|

* Discography
* Obscurities

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