Pitchfork: Album Reviews: The Magnetic Fields: Realism 6.0/10
Realism reviews at Metacritic.com 74/100
MILES OF TRANE REVIEW: MAYBE
It is impossible to mention The Magnetic Fields without harping back to their seminal 69 Love Songs three-CD box set. Was that ever a classic! But it had a characteristic of TMF works that bugs me. It was a mix of exquisite beauty interspersed with garbage. For 69 Love Songs there were 50-ish that fell on the excellent side of things, making for a very favorable ratio and making 69 Love Songs an essential in any collection, as not only are 50 great songs nothing to sneeze at, but these were 50 GREAT songs. Really GREAT. Realism has the same trait only maybe not as good a ratio of good to bad, and it doesn't reach such lofty heights even with the good stuff. But the good ones are so, good!