Stephin Merritt

maxresdefault.jpg
Songwriters

The Magnetic Fields
Future Bible Heroes
The 6ths

Since the debut of their first single in 1991, there has been no mistaking the sound of The Magnetic Fields. And the singularity of sound is derived almost entirely from the sound of Stephin Merritt’s bass vocals. As made most famous with the release of their indispensable 69 Love Songs, his style is that there is no style. Every song Stephin writes knows no genre bounds. If the song he is writing needs to be a synth-pop song, then so be it. Chamber pop? That’s ok too. Solo Acoustic? You get the idea. His talents are many.

His unique ability to write almost any kind of song has made him a favorite around TV and filmmakers, and he has written music for the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and scored independent films Eban and Charley, as well as Pieces of April (directed by Peter Hedges). Stephin wrote the music for a 2009 off-Broadway adaptation of the Neil Gaiman novel Coraline. He also recently scored the 2014 French film Dans La Cour featuring Catherine Deneuve, and has appeared on Bob’s Burgers. The Magnetic Fields song “The Book Of Love,” having been covered by many artists including Peter Gabriel and turned into a Top 40 hit in Belgium and The Netherlands by Irish singer Gavin James, is nothing short of a modern classic.