This list excises soundtrack work (unless compiled and released under his own name or band) as it’s meant to represent Merritt’s career independent of larger projects where he was a hired contributor. If he’d never written a word and faded into the background as a band’s musical architect, there’d still be much to discuss. Aside from being a brilliant wordsmith, he doubles as an arduous studio rat, obsessed with sound, genre study, and arrangement.
Since throwing in the kitchen sink with his (first) multi-disc epic, 69 Love Songs, he has never held onto an aesthetic for more than two albums straight, has let top-tier songs land on side projects, and has never attempted to alter his notoriously dour attitude in interviews (if you sit through any of them, you will see his insight and good humor frequently crack through). Sure, Merritt was never a Rockette, an alligator wrestler, or an ancient vampire, but his essence is splattered all over his storied and frequently excellent career.įor an artist who has always existed outside of ubiquitous recognition, he’s been an ambitious risk-taker. When considering his 25-plus years of output, what we’ve learned about Merritt’s life from the (admittedly uneven) documentary Strange Powers and the recently released 50 Song Memoir, the claim becomes more and more dubious over time. He has spent a career frequently priding himself on the disconnect between the sentimentality of his work and his personal life. Stephin Merritt said this in a 2015 issue of Rolling Stone, explaining the handful of songs he’s written that he considers to be at least somewhat autobiographical. “Relating to other people has always struck me as the most overrated of pleasures.”
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