Quickies (album)

Last updated
Quickies
Quickies (album).jpg
Studio album by
The Magnetic Fields
ReleasedMay 29, 2020
RecordedCottage Sounds, Decibelle, Mad Oak [1]
Genre Indie rock, indie pop
Length46:40
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 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]

Contents

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

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic 74/100 [5]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [6]
And It Don't Stop Five Pointed Star Solid.svg Five Pointed Star Solid.svg [7]
Beats Per Minute 78% [8]
Exclaim! 8/10 [9]
MusicOMH Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [10]
Pitchfork 7.3/10 [3]
Slant Magazine Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [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.TitleLength
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]

Other Personnel [1]

Charts

Chart (2020)Peak
position
Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ) [12] 27

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Magnetic Fields – Quickies". Discogs. 15 May 2020.
  2. ↑ "The Magnetic Fields". Nonesuch Records.
  3. 1 2 3 "The Magnetic Fields:Quickies Album Review". Pitchfork.
  4. ↑ "Magnetic Fields Quickies Vinyl Box Set Now Available". Nonesuch Records. 29 May 2020.
  5. 1 2 "Metacritic Review". Metacritic . Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  6. ↑ Thomas, Fred. "AllMusic Review". AllMusic . Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  7. 1 2 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. 1 2 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.
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