Whittling down "69 Love Songs" is the new whittling down "The White Album"
 

I've had 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields on my listening pile for quite some time, but only recently delved into the 3 disc set. I like it a lot, but there is some filler, IMO. It could be an absolutely brilliant album if some of it was excised. So, like some do in previous White Album threads, I pared it down to one excellent 80 minute disc. The sequencing is pretty much random except for the first and last songs ("Absolutely Cuckoo" is a great introduction and "Zebra"...well, it starts with a Z).

1. "Absolutely Cuckoo"
2. "Meaningless"
3. "Acoustic Guitar"
4. "I Don't Want To Get Over You"
5. "Promises of Eternity"
6. "All My Little Words"
7. "I Don't Belive in the Sun"
8. "Reno Dakota"
9. "Two Kinds of People"
10. "The Book of Love"
11. "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits"
12. "My Only Friend"
13. "A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off"
14. "Queen of the Savages"
15. "Washington, D.C."
16. "I Think I Need a New Heart"
17. "Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side"
18. "It's a Crime"
19. "Very Funny"
20. "Long-Forgotten Fairytale"
21. "Busby Berkeley Dreams"
22. "Bitter Tears"
23. "Papa Was a Rodeo"
24. "If You Don't Cry"
25. "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan"
26. "Kiss Me Like You Mean It"
27. "(Crazy For You But) Not That Crazy"
28. "Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget"
29. "The Night You Can't Remember"
30. "Zebra"

I'm not the only one doing this apparently. Stylus Magazine and The Believer both have features that whittle down the album (the former says that "Washington, D.C." is about a lesbian affair, but it seems pretty sexual orientation-neutral to me).

So, how would you scale 69 Love Songs down?

honestly, i wouldn't. none of them fit together better than the order they're in, and i think that's the point. and if not, i at least see the humor in the sprawl and silly lyrics.

I agree with Hollowgen.

That's a pretty good mix though.

I can definitely respect that. The reason why it's been sitting on my shelf, though, was that I wanted to (and did) listen to it in one sitting, more or less. At three discs, that can be a pretty daunting task, so I put it off. The above mix is the one I keep in my car.

Any whittling down which doesn't include "Yeah! Oh Yeah!" is pure farce. That's one of the best songs on that album.

No "Sweet Talkin' Man." No sale.