(Vol. 2), MRG168 (Vol. 3), and MRG169 (box set). On May 29, 2000, the album was released by Circus (CIR CD003) in Europe and Australia without the booklet insert. It was reissued in the United Kingdom through Domino as REWIGCD18. On April 20, 2010 Merge released a limited edition 6x10" vinyl version limited to 1000 copies. Critical reception 69 Love Songs received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, indicating "universal acclaim". Betty Clarke of The Guardian hailed it as "an album of such tenderness, humour and bloody-minded diversity, it'll have you throwing away your preconceptions and wondering how you ever survived a broken heart without it." Douglas Wolk of Spin called the album Stephin Merritt's "masterwork" and stated that "pop hasn't seen a lyricist of Merritt's kind and caliber since Cole Porter", praising his unique takes on standard love song clichés. Nick Mirov of Pitchfork wrote that Merritt "has proven himself as an exceptional songwriter, making quantum leaps in quality as well as quantity on 69 Love Songs." Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice, stated that despite his personal dislike of cynicism and reluctance to "link it to creative exuberance", the album's "cavalcade of witty ditties—one-dimensional by design, intellectual when it feels like it, addicted to cheap rhymes, cheaper tunes, and token arrangements, sung by nonentities whose vocal disabilities keep their fondness for pop theoretical—upends my preconceptions the way high art's sposed to." 69 Love Songs was voted second place in The Village Voices annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1999, behind Moby's Play. The poll's creator Robert Christgau ranked it as the best album of the year on his "Dean's List". In 2012, it was ranked at number 465 in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was ranked at number 406 in the 2020 edition of the list. The following year, NME placed it at number 213 on their own list of all-time greatest albums. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. According to Nielsen SoundScan, as of 2015 the three-volume boxed set has sold 83,000 copies, with an additional 58,000 for volume one, 34,000 for volume two, and 29,000 for volume three. 69 Love Songs, A Field Guide LD