Future Bible Heroes: Memories Of Love

It would be presumptuous to say that Stephin Merritt, the prolific frontman of Magnetic Fields and Future Bible Heroes, is the consummate master of modern pop. After all, he's not doing anything terribly groundbreaking (who in pop music is) or different (who expects pop music to be different), and the arrangements (synthesizers plus strings and instrumental oddments) he uses on this album are essentially the same as the ones he's always used. But Memories Of Love is, on a lyrical basis alone, perfection. Merritt's songs undulate with a deft combination of memorable and hummable melodies, wry lyrical wordplay, and bittersweet themes of loneliness and longing, much like the songs that made a legend of Cole Porter. Of course, this is just pop music, and it's meant to be danced to above anything else; the fact that it exceeds anyone's expectations of dance music is typical of everything Merritt has ever done. Just call him modern pop's master songwriter, and let it go at that.