Various: Oh, Merge

There's one simple trainspotter reason I bought this album: that it includes an alternate version of The Magnetic Fields' Take Ecstasy With Me, which is not available anywhere else (or wasn't in 2002, when I bought this). The version has a different arrangement and it has Susan Anway singing. She was The Magnetic Fields' singer until she moved away from New York and had to leave the band. When it comes to The Magnetic Fields, I am a trainspotter; I want everything they've ever recorded, and it annoys me that there are some tracks on 7" b-sides and other compilations from the early days that I will probably never find (like the one with Susan Anway singing Crowd of Drifters).

Apart from that, I've not really given this album much of a listen, and I'm not likely to. I quite like the tracks by people I already know and like, such as Lambchop and Neutral Milk Hotel, and the English acts that Merge licensed (Third Eye Foundation and Beatnik Filmstars) are OK too.

MusicBrainz entry for this album