About this Artist

Stephin Merritt releases albums under the band names the Magnetic Fields, the 6ths, the Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. With The Magnetic Fields, Merritt has written, produced, and recorded twelve albums to date. The Magnetic Fields' 1999 album, 69 Love Songs, was a 3-disc masterwork which garnered Merritt widespread acclaim, including "best of" year-end lists in Spin, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, and most other major national publications.

In 2002, Merritt signed to Nonesuch Records. He and the Magnetic Fields have performed as part of Lincoln Center's American Songwriters series and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. Merritt composed original music and lyrics for three music theater pieces directed by Chen Shi-Zheng, and in 2008, Merritt mounted an Off Broadway stage musical of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, for which he won an Obie Award. Merritt composed the score for the Academy-nominated film "Pieces of April" (dir. Peter Hedges) and for the independent film "Eban and Charley", and released soundtrack albums for each. His song "The Book of Love," was covered by Peter Gabriel and appears in the film "Shall We Dance" as well as numerous other films and TV shows. He composed incidental music for the HarperCollins' audiobooks of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, and for Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and subsequently released an album Songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events. Merritt released a book of prose, 101 Two Letter Words, about the tiniest words in the Scrabble dictionary, illustrated by Roz Chast. In 2024, Merritt and the Magnetic Fields have been touring to celebrate 69 Love Songs’ 25th anniversary.