Frownland

I wouldn't say that it's soulless, I can hear that the musicians enjoy what they're doing. I just found it mediocre and unappealing. Soulless is a bit of a strong word.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Unicr0n

Oh, 69 Love Songs.

I've always had a love for 'marathon' albums -- be it a drone or doom album with one monster hour-long track or some ridiculous prog-rock double album, I'm always excited to sit down with something of a ridiculous length. It's like an endurance test.

I remember when I first sat down with 69 Love Songs, years ago. It was one of the first Magnetic Fields albums I ever heard, and I thought 'Hey, this should be a perfect intro into their style.'

Instead I was blasted with three discs of just what everyone else here has pretty much said -- mediocrity. There's nothing inherently WRONG with the album, it's just too goddamn long, and the whole grungy indie-pop thing just isn't done that well.

Having sat down with it once again and listened to it almost completely straight through, a few years later...my opinion hasn't really changed. The only tracks, still, that stand out for me are 'Washington, D.C.' and 'Papa Was a Rodeo', the former just because it's catchy as **** and the latter because...I dunno why. I just like it.

There's just nothing here to really grab on to. It's one, long, droning indie-pop song, over three discs. And even I, in all my marathon listening glory, can't really get behind that.

Within the rather...tenacious theme of this month's club, I GUESS it fits the theme...triple album is close enough to double album. As for depressing...I guess that depends on what you find depressing. The styles of love songs done on this album aren't the type that really resonate with the melancholy in me.

As for the questioning of why it's ranked in the top for it's year and etc etc...I think a lot of that has to do SOLELY with the length. I know that in more experimental genres, particularly harsh noise walls and long-form doom metal, the harder something is to listen to, the more it's held up on some strange pedestal of awesome. It's as though the difficulty of getting through it adds some amount of mystical property to the album, making it better JUST because it's of a ridiculous length.

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Go ahead, pick apart my tastes. I know you want to.

Paedantic Basterd

I don't think it deserves acclaim based on ambition alone, if that is indeed the basis for it.

Goofle

I think RYM attracts EXACTLY the kind of people who latch onto any albums that are given indie cred, hence why Kanye West's MBDTF is around No. 1 for 2010 and albums like ITAOTS are given god like status.

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Unicr0n

I agree entirely. But unfortunately, that sort of crap seems to happen, a lot.

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Go ahead, pick apart my tastes. I know you want to.

Paedantic Basterd

I do feel like most people rate albums based on what they feel they're supposed to rate them, not based on how they genuinely feel about them.

I gave 69 Love Songs a 2 and I don't feel bad about it.

Goofle

I remember liking it a lot so it probably has a 4 from me, but I am sure it would go down if I listened to it again, which I will never do.

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Howard the Duck

it's too ardous for me in one go (69 Love Songs)

i'll just say i like the Cash pastiches they do

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Euronomus

I think the answer to this is that deep down most indie/hipster types view music as an extension of fashion and generally don't care about music as art/something to be listened to intently. I feel like most "real" music fans judge by actually listening to the music and making their decision on it alone, whereas most of the pitchfork crowd are just as fickle as teenage girls and judge everything based on what has the most press from the "right" places. When that is how music is judged you end up with some bands who really don't deserve it getting celebrated. Of course I'm making a generalization, I myself kind of fit the hipster mold- I'm totally that guy who listen's to a bunch of bands "you've probably never heard of"(as I'm sure most of you are too), and I'll admit to reading pitchfork from time to time as well-but I find 90% of the music they post about to be insufferable.

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Goofle

I always end up questioning my taste because a lot of the time the general average rating of an album is where I view it, which makes me think am I just going with the wind?

Then again, RYM will surely have trolls who give everything 2.0's just because they hate it's popularity, and fan-boys who give average album's 5.0's, so it's never an exact placing of what genuine voters think.

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