Thursday, April 23, 2009

The Magnetic Fields - B-Sides & Rarities (1989-2008)

The Magnetic Fields have been a band for 20 years now. In that time they have released 8 albums (10 if you count 69 Love Songs as 3 albums) and a handful of EPs. Then when you take in mind Stephin Merritt's other 3 projects, that adds 6 more full length albums to the picture, as well as 4 EPs. On top of that, Stephin also has 3 albums of the various film/ theater scores he has composed, with compilation album Showtunes compiling various songs from each. The guy is pretty prolific. Sure, he's no Robert Pollard, but unlike him Stephin keeps the quality ratio pretty damn high.

So all Magnetic Fields albums are really fantastic. But did you know there's a good number of hard to find b-sides and compilation tracks by the band? What I've done is compiled every single Magnetic Fields non-album track in chronological order, as well as a few excellent live tracks from the band and Stephin Merritt solo tracks. All the rarities! The only things I've excluded are the "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend" remixes, but those aren't really necessary as the EP is still readily available.

So enjoy this custom compilation by favorite band!

The Magnetic Fields - B-Sides & Rarities (1989-2008)


1. Plant White Roses (Susan Anway Vocal) ('89) [The Long Secret compilation]
2. Crowd Of Drifters ('90) [Doctor Death's Volume IV-The Marvels Of Insect Life]
3. Beach-A-Boop-Boop ('92) [Long Vermont Roads 7"]
4. Plain White Roses ('94) [Rows Of Teeth: Merge Records 5th Anniversary Compilation]
5. Rats in the Garbage of the Western World ('95) [All The Umbrellas In London 7'']
6. The Man Amplifier (Young Marble Giants) ('95) [Why I Cry 7"]
7. 'Heroes' (David Bowie) ('96) [Crash Course For The Ravers compilation]
8. I Die, You Die (Gary Numan) ('97) [Random compilation]
9. Smoke and Mirrors (Mary Robinson Remix) ('97) [MRG100 compilation]
10. I Don't Believe You ('98) [I Don't Believe You 7"]
11. When I'm Not Looking, You're Not There ('98) [I Don't Believe You 7")
12. Le Tourbillion (Boris Bassiak) ('99) [Pop Romantique compilation]
13. Take Ecstasy With Me (Susan Anway, vocal) ('99) [Oh, Merge: A Merge Records 10 Year Anniversary Compilation]
14. If I Were a Rich Man [Fiddler on the Roof] ('99) [Knitters on the Roof compilation]
15. One April Day ('03) [Pieces of April soundtrack]
16. The Meaning of Lice ('06) [Plague Songs compilation]
17. The Man of a Million Faces ('07) [NPR's Two Day Song Challenge]
18. The Nun's Litany (Stephin Merritt version) ('08) [Please Stop Dancing EP]
19. Three Way [Live at the Iron Horse Music Hall (2-11-08)]
20. Too Drunk to Dream [Live at the Iron Horse Music Hall (2-11-08)]
21. I Thought You Were My Boyfriend [Live at the Somerville Theatre (2-15-08)]
22. Take Esctasy With Me [Live at the Iron Horse Music Hall (2-11-08)]
23. Yeah, Oh Yeah! [Live at the Iron Horse Music Hall (2-11-08)]
24. The Nun's Litany [Live on Fair Game]

Bonus songs:

Flare (The band of LD Beghtol, guest vocalist on 69 Love Songs) - Celebrate the Misery (Stephin Merritt Mix) ('99)

The Magnetic Fields - What a Fucking Lovely Day! (Stephin Merritt vocals) [Live at the Iron Horse Music Hall (2-11-08)]

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR UPLOADING THIS!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!! UUUHH!!!!!

Anonymous said...

thanks. this is great. had a lot of these from the actual releases but some were virtually impossible to find in any format. much appreciated.

xiaoxue said...

this is exactly what i've been looking for. thank you so much! :)

Tristan Burns said...

Thank you so much, this is exactly what I was looking for. Saved me a ton of time hunting down individual tracks. Thank you.

OwwwOwww said...

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS

j_brodu said...

hey. sooo, i don't have my laptop anymore, and i'd like to get these again, but megaupload got shut down by the fbi. would you mind uploading them somewhere else? thanks!