THE GOTHIC ARCHIES
The Tragic Treasury: Songs From A Series of Unfortunate Events
Nonesuch
· Kid stuff.
It’s been an interesting year for Stephin Merritt. While his solo Showtunes, a compilation of the tunes composed for a trio of musicals, had the staying power of one of those shows’ actual performances (nothing really worth calling home about), The Gothic Archies’s Tragic Treasury arrives rather overshadowed by recent internet-driven accusations that Mr. Merritt is a racist, given his voiced distaste for hip hop music.
The Tragic Treasury, gathering Merritt’s Gothic Archies work written for each volume of Lemony Snickett’s Series of Unfortunate Events books, has just about as much weight as Showtunes did. It’s just as you’d expect – grand rhyme schemes about crows, Count Olaf and gargoyles on a leash, over Merritt’s tinny synth-pop. There’s no one quite so talented with turns of phrase both lyrical and musical these days, but the more time Merritt spends away from his beloved Magnetic Fields, the more diluted his output has become.
When Merritt makes a revelation about love anywhere on the Fields’s masterwork 69 Love Songs, the effect is massive. Here, toying with kid-book imagery, the songs themselves feel as tossed off as the gothic cobweb dressing they’re awkwardly fitted with.
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