Stephin Merritt

Rants and Other Suggestions With Jonathan Franzen, Gail Collins & More

THE GLAMOROUS LIFE

Emma Straub launches her first novel

Live: Philip Glass Shows Off His Influence At ISSUE Project Room

Philip Glass w/Nate Wooley, Antoine Silverman, and Stephin Merritt ISSUE Project Room Wednesday, June 13 Better than: The sound of one hand clapping. Philip Glass spoke briefly. It was to be expected from a minimalist so staunch that he chooses not to identify himself with the movement he helped d ... More >>

Navigating Stephin Merritt's Many Shades of Dry

Welcome to the droll house

This Week In The Voice: Black Dice Rolls On; Stephin Merritt's Droll House

In this week's Village Voice, out now: Andy Beta catches up with the Brooklyn noise masters Black Dice, and talks about how they went as pop as they can on their new album Mr. Impossible; and Michael Tedder catches up with the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt and uncovers his gearhead side, about wh ... More >>

Q&A: Stephin Merritt On His Favorite Gear, His Reasons For The No-Synth Trilogy, And Being Scooped By Trent Reznor

The Magnetic Fields' new album Love At The Bottom Of The Sea (Merge) is the first in more than a decade to feature the shimmering synthesizer lines for which the endlessly malleable indiepop icons first became known. As I learned when writing this week's Voice profile of Magnetic Fields songwriter S ... More >>

The Magnetic Fields

Lou Reed And The Velvet Underground (3) Match Wits With The Magnetic Fields (14) In SOTC's March Madness

​The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness—in which you, the Sound of the City voting public, help determine the quintessential New York musician—is a little jam-packed today. (The schedule and results so far are here; the full, updated bracket is here.) Here ... More >>

STARRY NIGHT

Philip Glass curates the Tibet House jam

This Week in the Voice: Dan Choi, Bad Lieutenant

​Lt. Daniel Choi resembles so many other American soldiers in many, many ways: as a late 20s West Point grad who loves his country, a born-again Christian, as a soldier who's served two tours in Iraq, and as a soldier who's been kicked out of the military. But even that isn't the distinguishment t ... More >>

The Stephin Merritt Mystery Unsolved in Strange Powers

Week in Review: We Are A Viking Raiding Party of Good Will and Intention

These Are Powers, Secret Project Robot, Confetti. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne​In the week that everybody finally went outside for the summer, we hung out on a few rooftops ourselves. Twin Sister? Rooftop. The SFNY party? Rooftop. Good Co.? BBQ, outdoors, ground floor. So yeah. The rain drove us in ... More >>

Let Us Be the Indie-Curmudgeon Tiger Beat: A Collection of Stephin Merritt Photos from Monday Night's OBIES Awards

photo by Cary ConoverStephin Merritt with David Greenspan during the cocktail hour On Monday night, the SOTC triumverate had the unique pleasure of eating hor d'oeuvres and standing awkwardly beside sardonic anti-hero songwriter Stephin Merritt during the cocktail hour of our paper's 55th Annual Of ... More >>

Live from an Afrobeat Obie Night

A recap of the 55th annual Village Voice Off-Broadway awards celebration

Tonight! Phosphorescent, Strange Powers, Softspot, And Unsolved Mysteries

Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck, a/k/a the bro who sat for Da Vinci one time. ​Tonight, Phosphorescent, the only country warblers ever to dedicate a song to Coney Island's fleshy Mermaid Parade, celebrate the release of their new album at Other Music. In last week's Yes in My Backyard installme ... More >>

Week in Review: May Day

Salute. Photo by Sam Horine.​In the week we finally got to unleash the initial Siren Festival details on the world (July 17! 10th anniversary! Matt & Kim, Ted Leo, Surfer Blood, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and Harlem! Totally free!), we celebrated Cinco De Mayo like Anna Wintour, Pharrell, a ... More >>

Q&A: Director Kerthy Fix Talks Strange Powers, Her New Documentary About Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields

"That I can go to Google and the third thing that comes up "Is Stephin Merritt a racist because he doesn't like hip-hop?" It was so wrong and immoral, and it had never fully been cleared up." A generation of terrified journalists and collaborators will tell you that Stephin Merritt is a fundament ... More >>

Justin Bieber Tops MGMT, Plus An Analysis Of The Best-Selling (Well, Maybe) Record Store Day Singles

​This week's album chart has in its first two positions the two biggest stories in pop music last week. Once again, the pole position was assumed by Canadian teenager Justin Bieber, whose first full-length, My World 2.0, sold 92,000 copies--only the second time this year that the No. 1 album h ... More >>

Here Is the Trailer for the Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields Documentary

Seems that the long awaited and slaved over Stephin Merritt documentary now has both a name and a trailer. Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields is set to debut at the San Francisco Film Society, February 28th, and will hopefully then eventually make its way to New York, where so ... More >>

Feigning Sincerity With the Magnetic Fields

Realism only pretends to be honest, but it's a hootenanny nevertheless

Stream Realism, the Newest from Magnetic Fields, or Watch the Stephin Merritt Documentary Premiering in San Francisco Next Month

​It's our experience that Stephin Merritt is far more open about his life and work than people seem to give him credit for, but those who've found him impenetrable in the past will now have another way to get to know him--via documentary. The as-yet-untitled, 10-years-in-the-works film, direct ... More >>

Other Mother's Day

Greenspan and Merritt's Coraline Does Gaiman Proud

This Week's Voice: Dirty Projectors, Sonic Youth's The Eternal, Coppola's Tetro, Sigmar Polke, Stephin Merritt's Coraline, and More

Vincent Gallo in Tetro In this week's Village Voice Music Section, Rob Harvilla testifies to the alternating agony and ecstasy of Brooklyn's own art-rock lobsters, the Dirty Projectors. Cristina Black talks with downtown ingenue Regina Spektor. Dan Weiss on Sonic Youth's newest, The Eternal. Don ... More >>

This Week in the Voice

After a lifetime of political hackery, former city councilmember Noach Dear, who had never even practiced law, became a municipal judge. Who knew he'd become a savior to hundreds of New Yorkers harassed and dunned by unscrupulous and sometimes crooked debt collectors? And that he'd get standing ova ... More >>

Stephin Merritt and David Greenspan Conjure an Unusual Tuner for Coraline

Cue the crazy piano!

This Week's Voice: Ciara and Chrisette Michelle, Bob Dylan, Outrage, Ben Greenman's Please Step Back, Stephin Merritt's Coraline, and More

In this week's Village Voice Music Section, Rob Harvilla takes a trip to the r&b salt mines with Ciara and Chrisette Michelle. Edd Hurt on Bob Dylan's Together Through Life, during most of which Dylan apparently carries a gun. Justin Farrar laments the end of USA Is a Monster. Brad Cohan anticipa ... More >>

This Week in the Voice

Is it Trekalicious? Or Trek Jerky? Robert Wilonsky weighs in on the Star Trek movie, in which Spock is a "tormented youth in revolt." Ward Sutton does the funny cartoon version. We're accustomed to think of William Thompson as Mr. Clean. But he's a friend of William Howell, and as city comptrol ... More >>

Interview: Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt

Rock Star Fashion Watch: The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt, 'French Tourist in Soho' Edition

M83 Tonight at Bowery Ballroom

ROMANCE & ILLUSION

M83, live from outer space

Stephin Merritt On Why He Only Dresses in Brown

MAGNETIC APPEAL

Town Hall gets distorted with Stephin Merritt & Co.

Misanthropic Fields Forever

A delightful chat with the delightfully sardonic Stephin Merritt

Breihan vs. Harvilla: Does Indie-Rock Need Rhythm?

Separation Saturday Night

Deadpan humor and clever histrionics redeem Okkervil River's classic-rock bathos

All Downhill From Here

Orc-Hestral Maneuvers in the Dark

Are You In Love?

Rock stars, dating experts, and cartoon characters talk about Valentine's Day

Triple Word Score

Owen Ashworth laments listless intellectual on limited single

An International Puzzle Out of Danish Fairy Tales? Your Cultures Can Get Cross.

NY Mirror

A Thousand I's

Stephin Merritt modestly submerges his first person under the ninth letter of the alphabet

Witty Snot-Pop Protests Take on Elephant Men and Donkey Men Alike

Diphthong Songs

As Hundreds Cheer

The Glum Triumph of The Magnetic Fields

Hey Dreaming Cowboy with a Big Ole Texas Grin

Easy Money

Summer of 69