The 6ths is a band created by Stephin Merritt

Stephin Merritt

Stephin Merritt is an American singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles , best known as the principal singer and songwriter in the band The Magnetic Fields...

, also the prime mover behind The Magnetic Fields

The Magnetic Fields

The Magnetic Fields is the principal creative outlet of singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt...

, The Gothic Archies

The Gothic Archies

The Gothic Archies are a self-described goth-bubblegum band created and largely performed by Stephin Merritt, more famously of The Magnetic Fields. In 1997, Merritt released The New Despair. The EP featured the song "Your Long White Fingers", which appeared frequently in the cult Nickelodeon series...

 and Future Bible Heroes

Future Bible Heroes

Future Bible Heroes is one of several musical groups led by Stephin Merritt, best known for his work with The Magnetic Fields. He shares vocal duties with Claudia Gonson, who sings on the entirety of 2002's Eternal Youth...

.

One story has it that the band was conceived when Merritt, observing that there was no tribute album dedicated to him, decided to make one himself. The concept is that Merritt writes and plays songs which are then sung by other artists, different ones on each track. It has so far produced two well-received albums and many different collaborations.

The list of singers on Wasps' Nests includes many notable mid-90s indie-rockers, including Barbara Manning

Barbara Manning

Barbara Manning is an American indie rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. In addition to her solo career, Manning has been active in a number of bands, including 28th Day , World of Pooh, S.F. Seals and The Go-Luckys!. She has also distinguished herself as an interpreter of other writers' songs...

, Mary Timony

Mary Timony

Mary B. Timony is an American independent singer-songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist, and violist. She was a member of the bands Helium and Autoclave, and currently plays in Wild Flag.-Biography:...

, Dean Wareham

Dean Wareham

Dean Wareham is an American musician, who formed the band Galaxie 500 in 1987. Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Wareham moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia, before settling in New York City in 1977. Wareham attended high school at Dalton School in New York, and then attended Harvard...

 (Galaxie 500

Galaxie 500

Galaxie 500 was an American alternative rock band that formed in 1987 and split up in 1991 after releasing three albums.-History:Guitarist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang had met at the Dalton School in New York City in 1981, but began playing together during their time...

, Luna

Luna (band)

Luna was a dream pop/indie pop band formed in 1991 by Dean Wareham after the breakup of Galaxie 500, with Stanley Demeski and Justin Harwood...

, Dean & Britta), Lou Barlow

Lou Barlow

Louis Knox Barlow is an American alternative rock musician and songwriter. A founding member of the groups Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. Barlow is credited with helping to pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s...

, Chris Knox

Chris Knox

Chris Knox is a New Zealand rock and roll musician, cartoonist, and DVD reviewer who emerged during the punk rock era with his bands The Enemy and Toy Love. After Toy Love disbanded in the early 1980s, he formed the group Tall Dwarfs with guitarist Alec Bathgate, much loved for their honest,...

 (Tall Dwarfs

Tall Dwarfs

Tall Dwarfs are a New Zealand rock band formed in 1981 by Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate who, through their do-it-yourself ethic, helped pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music. The duo formed out of the ashes of Toy Love....

), Robert Scott

Robert Scott (musician)

Robert Scott is a New Zealand musician. He is a part of indie rock bands The Clean and The Bats, playing bass for The Clean, and guitar/vocals for The Bats.Both groups have been greatly influential beyond their limited commercial success....

 (The Bats

The Bats

The Bats are an influential New Zealand rock band formed in 1982 in Christchurch by Paul Kean , Malcolm Grant , Robert Scott and Kaye Woodward...

, The Clean

The Clean

The Clean are an influential Indie rock band that formed in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1978. Led through a number of early rotating line-ups by brothers Hamish and David Kilgour, the band settled down to their well-known and current line-up with bassist Robert Scott...

), and Mark Robinson

Mark Robinson (musician)

Mark Robinson is an indie-rock musician from Washington, D.C. who founded TeenBeat Records in 1984. Best known for founding Unrest , he has also been a member of Air Miami, Flin Flon, Grenadine, and currently plays with Evelyn Hurley in Cotton Candy. He has released a number of solo records...

.

Some of the more notable artists appearing on Hyacinths and Thistles are Bob Mould

Bob Mould

Robert Arthur "Bob" Mould is an American musician, principally known for his work as guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for alternative rock bands Hüsker Dü in the 1980s and Sugar in the 1990s.-Early life:...

, Sally Timms

Sally Timms

Sally Timms is an English singer and songwriter. Timms is best known for her long involvement with the Mekons whom she joined in 1985....

 (The Mekons), Sarah Cracknell

Sarah Cracknell

Sarah Cracknell is an English pop singer who fronts the band Saint Etienne and is known for her light, smooth singing voice. She is the daughter of Stanley Kubrick's first assistant director Derek Cracknell.-Career:...

 (Saint Etienne

Saint Etienne (band)

Saint Etienne are an English Pop group comprising Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs. They are named after the French football team AS Saint-Étienne.-History:Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs were childhood friends and former music journalists...

), Neil Hannon

Neil Hannon

Neil Hannon is a Northern Irish singer and songwriter, best known as the creator and frontman of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy. The band's official website even goes so far as to say, "The Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon," and Hannon is quoted in an interview as saying, "The Divine Comedy...

 (The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy (band)

The Divine Comedy are a chamber pop band from Ireland, fronted by Neil Hannon. Formed in 1989, Hannon has been the only constant member of the group, playing, in some instances, all of the non-orchestral instrumentation bar drums. To date, ten studio albums have been released under the Divine...

), Gary Numan

Gary Numan

Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...

, Marc Almond

Marc Almond

Marc Almond is an English singer-songwriter and musician, who originally found fame as half of the seminal synthpop/New Wave duo Soft Cell...

, Momus

Momus (artist)

Nick Currie , more popularly known under the artist name Momus , is a songwriter, blogger and former journalist for Wired...

, Clare Grogan

Clare Grogan

Clare Grogan is a Scottish actress and singer. She is sometimes credited as C. P. Grogan.-Early life:...

 (Altered Images

Altered Images

Altered Images were an early 1980s Scottish New Wave / post-punk band. Led by lead singer Clare Grogan, the band branched into mainstream pop music, and had a string of chart hits between 1981 and 1983.-Early career:...

), Melanie

Melanie Safka

Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk is an American singer-songwriter. Known professionally as simply Melanie, she is best known for her hits "Brand New Key", "Ruby Tuesday" and "Lay Down ".-Early career:...

, Miss Lily Banquette (Combustible Edison

Combustible Edison

Combustible Edison was a group founded in the early 1990s in Providence, Rhode Island, and was one of several lounge music acts that led a brief resurgence of interest in the genre during the mid-1990s...

), Katharine Whalen (Squirrel Nut Zippers

Squirrel Nut Zippers

The Squirrel Nut Zippers are a band formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina by James "Jimbo" Mathus , Katharine Whalen , Chris Phillips on drums, Don Raleigh on bass and sideman Ken Mosher....

) and the accomplished toy piano

Toy piano

The toy piano, also known as the kinderklavier , is a small piano-like musical instrument. The present form of the toy piano was invented in Philadelphia by a 17-year-old German immigrant named Albert Schoenhut. He worked as a repairman at Wanamaker's department store, repairing broken glass...

 player Margaret Leng Tan

Margaret Leng Tan

Margaret Leng Tan is a classical music artist known for her work as a professional toy pianist, performing in major cities around the world on her 51 cm-high toy pianos...

. The album also features an improbable duet of singer Odetta

Odetta

Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...

 accompanied by Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American novelist Daniel Handler . Snicket is the author of several children's books, serving as the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events and appearing as a character within the series. Because of this, the name Lemony Snicket may refer to both a fictional...

author Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler is an American author, screenwriter and accordionist. He is best known for his work under the pen name Lemony Snicket.-Personal life:...

 on accordion.

The two albums released to date are Wasps' Nests (1995) and Hyacinths and Thistles (1999/2000). as well as a 7" vinyl single for Heaven in a Black Leather Jacket (1993) (from the Wasps' Nests' LP) that contains a B-Side, Rot in the Sun, a humorous take on Los Angeles, sung by Merritt himself.

The names of both albums, and the name of the band, are deliberate tongue-twister

Tongue-twister

A tongue-twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken word game. Some tongue-twisters produce results which are humorous when they are mispronounced, while others simply rely on the confusion and mistakes of the speaker for their...

s. The words are chosen for their abundance of s and th sounds. Sixths packs one th and three s sounds into one syllable. The band's website refers to the 6ths as "every lisper's nightmare".

Discography

• Heaven in a Black Leather Jacket / Rot in the Sun (7" Single) (1993)
• Wasps' Nests (1995)
• Hyacinths and Thistles (1999)