Live In-Studio: The Magnetic Fields

Stephin Merritt — songwriter and founder of The Magnetic Fields — just had the most productive mid-life crisis ever. On the night of his 50th birthday, he began recording “50 Song Memoir”: a five-disc, two-and-a-half-hour audio autobiography, featuring one song for each year of his life. Stephin came to the studio to play a few songs off the album, and to explain to Kurt the motivation behind such an ambitious project. “It’s a publicity stunt,” he said. “Like the Trump presidency.”