69 Love Songs

69 Love Songs is a three-volume concept album by The Magnetic Fields released in 1999. As its title indicates, the album is composed of 69 love songs, all written by Magnetic Fields frontman Stephin Merritt. The album was originally conceived as a music revue. Stephin Merritt was sitting in a gay piano bar in Manhattan, listening to the pianist's interpretations of Stephen Sondheim songs, when he decided he ought to get into theatre music because he felt he had an aptitude for it. "I decided I'd write one hundred love songs as a way of introducing myself to the world. Then I realized how long that would be. So I settled on sixty-nine. I'd have a theatrical revue with four drag queens. And whoever the audience liked best at the end of...