The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt is "an incredibly prolific, creative, and nimble songwriter with the perfect dose of temperamentality needed to attain the moniker of artistic genius," says NPR's Talk of the Nation assistant producer Sarah Handel in an appreciation. "I've seen him live a handful of times, sometimes petulant due to rowdy drunks playing pool, but more often poetic and generous, taking requests from the audience and playing like he's got all night.
Sarah Handel, an assistant producer at NPR's Talk of the Nation, left a post on the show's blog earlier today with a few words in praise of Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields. (Not terribly surprising, perhaps, considering that her bio cites as a pivotal moment in her decision to work for NPR the night she heard an All Things Considered story on the group.)
In the blog entry, Handel recalls her first year at college, when she would listen to the group incessantly, and had come to appreciate "the man behind the music":
... an incredibly prolific, creative, and nimble songwriter with the perfect dose of temperamentality needed to attain the moniker of artistic genius. I've seen him live a handful of times, sometimes petulant due to rowdy drunks playing pool, but more often poetic and generous, taking requests from the audience and playing like he's got all night.
She takes the opportunity to give a much-deserved plug to Stephin's participation in Project Song on the new NPR Music site, in which he creates a new song in two days out of next to nothing at all. It "literally took my breath away," she writes. "And it's absolutely beautiful."
Read the rest of Sarah's blog entry here.
Watch the Project Song process unfold and listen to the resulting song here.
Catch The Magnetic Fields live: click here for information on their upcoming tour.
