''i'' is the seventh studio album by American

indie pop Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with a DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and s ...

band

The Magnetic Fields The Magnetic Fields are an American Band (rock and pop), band founded and led by Stephin Merritt. Merritt is the group's primary songwriter, producer, and vocalist, as well as frequent multi-instrumentalist. The band is named after the André B ...

. It was released on May 4, 2004, by record label Nonesuch. The songs of the album all start with the letter "i" and are all sung by

Stephin Merritt Stephin Merritt (born February 9, 1965) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the songwriter and principal singer of the bands the Magnetic Fields, the Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. He is known for ...

. The songs are also in alphabetical order.

Musical style

The album ditches many of Stephin Merritt's past

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s ...

and

electropop Electropop is a popular music fusion genre combining elements of the electronic and pop styles. It has been described as a variant of synth-pop with emphasis on a hard electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a rev ...

influences, largely being led by guitars and strings. It was followed in 2008, by ''

Distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

'', and in 2010, by ''

Realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *American Realism *Classical Realism *Liter ...

'', which were both also free of

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

instrumentation, forming the so-called "no-synth trilogy".

Album cover

The cover art, designed by Evan Gaffney, is based on ''Gravity in Four Directions'' by

Fred Tomaselli Fred Tomaselli (born in Santa Monica, California, in 1956) is an American artist. He is best known for his highly detailed paintings on wood panels, combining an array of unorthodox materials suspended in a thick layer of clear, epoxy resin. Th ...

Reception

''i'' has been well-received by critics. It currently holds a score of 79/100 on review aggregator website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. A track-by-track tribute to the album, entitled ''¡AYE!'', was released by Jackson & the Wargonauts in 2014.

Track listing

Personnel

; The Magnetic Fields *

– vocals, instrumentation, production *

Claudia Gonson Claudia Miriam Gonson (born April 5, 1968) is an American musician best known for her work with The Magnetic Fields. She often provides the band lead vocals as well as performing the piano or drums. She is also the band's manager. Gonson met ...

– drums and percussion, piano, harpsichord, background vocals,

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

on "In an Operetta" *

Sam Davol Samuel Bradford Davol is a musician best known for his work with the indie pop band The Magnetic Fields. He is featured several times in videos for The Magnetic Fields, and in the opening for "Born on a Train", his cello is featured at the beginni ...

– cello *

John Woo John Woo Yu-sen ( zh, t= ; born 22 September 1946) is a Hongkongers, Hong Kong film director known as a highly influential figure in the action film genre. The recipient of various accolades, including a Hong Kong Film Awards, Hong Kong Film Award ...

– banjo, guitar, electric sitar ; Technical * Charles Newman – recording * Ravi Krishnaswami – recording * Charles Newman – additional production, mixing * Jeff Lipton – mastering * Vincent Giangola – additional editing on "I Don't Believe You" * David Merrill – recording on "In an Operetta"

References

External links

* 2004 albums The Magnetic Fields albums 2000s concept albums Nonesuch Records albums {{2000s-indie-pop-album-stub