The Magnetic Fields' new five-LP / five-CD collection, 50 Song Memoir, is due out on Nonesuch Records this Friday, March 10. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it: the album is streaming as an NPR First Listen, with the songs from one disc—one decade of singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt's life—being added each day. 50 Song Memoir chronicles the 50 years of Merritt's life with one song per year. He sings vocals on all 50 songs and plays more than 100 instruments, from ukulele to piano to drum machine to abacus. Unlike his previous work, the lyrics are nonfiction—a mix of autobiography and documentary.

"Through hard work and strikingly singular talent, its author elevates himself out of absolute poverty, and somehow manages to write dozens of playful and often hilarious songs about it all. That's quite an achievement," writes NPR's Barry Walters. "Some of its wordplay is truly remarkable ... More importantly, Memoirs is a tour-de-farce of melody and arrangement. Festooned with all sorts of freaky squeaking yet frequently as catchy as Top 40, it's the avant-garde in service of eternally youthful pop. It's also the opposite—juvenilia in honor of hard-won maturity. How you hear it is, as always, up to you."

Read the complete review at npr.org/music.

50 Song Memoir may be pre-ordered now at iTunes and in the Nonesuch Store, where seven songs may be downloaded immediately. 50 Song Memoir is available in five-LP and five-CD editions including an extensive interview by Daniel Handler and facsimile handwritten lyrics by Merritt, and as a standalone bound book with a full-album download card. For a limited time, pre-orders at the Nonesuch Store also come with an exclusive print signed by Merritt.

The NPR Music First Listen embed was replaced with a Spotify embed following the album's release.