Additional information
The Magnetic Fields: Stephin Merritt. Additional personnel: Natalie Lithwick (spoken vocals); John Woo (guitar, banjo); Sam Davol (cello, flute); Julie Cooper (bass); Claudia Gonson (drums, vocals, ukulele). After four full albums and a handful of EPs and singles recorded mostly (if not entirely) by himself, Stephin Merritt introduces a full band on GET LOST. He surrounds his own keyboards and guitar with real drums and percussion, cello, viola, banjo, bass, and ukulele. The results are spectacular. The exquisite arrangements breath new life into Merritt's usual themes of failed romance and world-weary bitterness "When You're Old and Lonely" sounds thematically of a piece with "The Desperate Things You Made Me Do." But where earlier Magnetic Fields albums would have married both to similar arrangements, GET LOST outfits one with a tasteful, minimal backing and the other with a hypnotic dancefloor vibe. After the release of GET LOST, Merritt (temporarily) turned his attention to a variety of side projects. But the album is one of the crowning achievements of Stephin Merritt's long and varied career.
Reviews
Spin (12/95, p.87) - 7 - Flawed Yet Worthy - "...Magnetic Fields albums come off like bubblegum Joy Division, there are reasons for that. Ardor and distance are the pop song's main ingredients. Can you name a better tool for capturing the ambiguities of youthful lust in the age of AIDS?....GET LOST writhes with as many swoony tunes as ever....But it hurts more..." Alternative Press (2/96, p.62) - "...has the starkness of earlier Ultravox or OMD with none of the pretensions. Merritt simply gushes sentimentality, without shame. And rarely does this kind of ludicrous vulnerability come from someone who can actually write a great song..." Option (3-4/96, p.112) - "...Merritt's ranking strengths, though, are his unreserved certainty with melody and his surgically precise songwriting..." Melody Maker (3/16/96, p.41) - "...The Magnetic Fields' appraoch to pop construction is so smart, so obsessive, yet so uninvolved...one of the most honest albums I've heard in months..."
