Simple droll songs about bad guys, villainous situations, and unpleasant places. Played with a variety of well-synthesized accordions, glockenspiels, etc, and sometimes pure electric. Sung in his depressed baritone. Stephan Merritt is friends with Lemony Snicket, the author of The Series of Unfortunate Events children’s books. Lemony wrote the long liner notes for 69 Love Songs and Merritt returned the favor, so to speak, by producing music (with the author himself) for his audiobooks. Many of those tracks appear here.

1. Oh, with unveiled contempt, it’s the bad Count Olaf.
++2.catchy like old Magnetic Fields
++3.Good buzzy synths here
+4.Dramatic, minor key, a little like the beatles
5.produced to sound like an old recording (except for end) sparse
6.Happy-sounding ballad
7.flanged guitar, almost “unplugged”. Cliché
+8. Gentle but on edge. I keep expecting it to change: it doesn’t
++9.I’m a sucker for banjo, even fake banjo. Boppy, bouncy
+10.interesting sounds, good impression of hoplelessness
11.nearly a-capella (distant toy piano) weird yet lullabye-like
12.slow cabaret
++13.ditzy waltz of hate
+14.Full sound, faster than most of this CD
15.funny paen to commercialism,(has Cthulu reference at end)