100,000 Fireflies

"100,000 Fireflies"
Single by The Magnetic Fields
from the album Distant Plastic Trees
Released	September 1991
Format	7" vinyl, CD
Genre	Twee pop, indie pop
Length	3:20
Label	Harriet Records
Writer(s)	Stephin Merritt

"100,000 Fireflies" is the first single by the American indie pop band The Magnetic Fields, taken from their first studio album Distant Plastic Trees, released in 1991. It is known for its bleak, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and black humour^[1] and for Susan Anway's sparse, soprano vocal performance.^[2] The song had limited mainstream success, with minor radio play on alternative stations on its release, but slowly grew into a cult classic becoming "the ultimate staple" of indie mixtape culture during the 1990s.^[3]

Because of its re-release in 1995 as part of the 2 for 1 Distant Plastic Trees/The Wayward Bus album, Glide magazine named it the second best modern rock song of the previous decade in 2004.^[4]

References

1. "100,000 Fireflies". allmusic.com. Retrieved 17 December 2011.
2. "The Magnetic Fields - 100,000 Fireflies". Stylus magazine. Retrieved 17 December 2011.
3. "Twee as Fuck - The Story of Indie Pop". Pitchfork. Retrieved 17 December 2011.
4. "20 Top Modern Rock Songs Of The Past Decade (1994-2004)". Glide magazine. Retrieved 17 December 2011.