LAY OFF NATALIE MERCHANT

Yes, there are!

Oh Hope Chest is the shit, man. You've got that one right. That's probably the very best Maniacs there is, although Wishing Chair gives it a good run for its money, and probably tops it in the lyrics department. Also this is the sexiest album cover I've ever seen:

http://www.lovepeace.org/vos/album/01album/01natalie.jpg

"A frosted tower/of sugar and flour/for the couple of the hour"

or "Verdi Cries", or the "The Painted Desert"...

1. Maddox Table
2. Katrina's Fair
3. Planned Obsolescence
4. Like the Weather
5. Can't Ignore the Train
6. Wildwood Flower
7. Orange
8. Eat for Two
9. Don't Talk
10. My Mother the War
11. Daktari
12. Back o' the Moon
13. A Campfire Song
14. You Happy Puppet
15. Verdi Cries

Doctors have come from distants cities, just to see me
Stand over my bed, disbelieving what they're seeing

1-They say I must be one of the wonders
Of God's own creation
And as far as they see, they can offer
No explanation

Newspapers ask intimate questions, want confessions
They reach into my head to steal, the glory of my story

Ooo, I believe, fate, fate smiled
And destiny laughed as she came to my cradle
Know this child will be able
Laughed as my body she lifted
Know this child will be gifted
With love, with patience, and with faith
She'll make her way, she'll make her way

People see me I'm a challenge to your balance
I'm over your heads how I confound you
And astound you
To know I must be one of the wonders...

Really, what is this song about, a clairvoyant who wants to upset the status quo?

xpost Ned that's totally bizarro! Unless that was your grandmother in the video or something. "Trouble Me" was kinda just "Like the Weather" remade. A lot of Blind Man's Zoo was In My Tribe remade, better written and better produced and yet still not as good, what with Merchant's lyrics tipping over the line from "oh cool she sings about actual stuff" to "yeah, I know, an issue, just write a short story or something." (Seriously, it's amazing how much her lyrics have forever been like Marilynne Robinson books and such.)

I've always heard it as a fantastical musing on a newborn baby seen as destined for great things. I'm not generally a fan of Natalie's voice or work, but that song always struck me as really intriguing, and it was the first thing that came to mind when two of my best friends had a baby last summer. Little Lydia is a fortunate child indeed: "with love, with patience, and with faith, she'll make her way."

the thing i always hear about that record is "i'd love it if it wasn't for the dated '80s production." to me the production's the best thing about it! peter asher, i worship you.

Nabisco startlingly OTM re: Blind Man's Zoo vs. In My Tribe

haha he's a terrible guitar player though! there are bum notes on unplugged that even the usual "live album" post-production sleight of hand couldn't sweep under the rug.

See, she WAS singing about herself!

btw 'sopoforic' is sophomoric and soporific put together, I just invented it.

Dude, what's fuckin' minimalist about this? It works in as verse, not as song lyrics.

x-post

With my blessing, Matos.

patti smith was pretty goofy when i saw her in concert a couple years back but it was momentary, she went into season of the witch mode (ie. why people cared) and still pulls it off

stipe all over this thread

OK, got it Tim.

10km's "upstate"-ness was always one of my favorite things about 'em. for all their early attempts to be worldly it's kinda clear (to me) that they were culturally pretty backwards. upstate towns are all stuck in a 1920-1962 time warp, more twilight zone dead-factory creepy-christian than post-victorian antiquing-town twee.

i do like one song off that natalie merchant solo album, however. the name of it escapes me. the song and the album, both.

this is part real forgetfulness, part pretend forgetfulness.

Yes, really. Because we all know that's how a mother who beats her child will speak to him: "'Cuse me, you don't mind if I beat on your behind, do you? Be a dear. Because I really need to have this line have an internal rhyme."

It's actually so bad it's good. I used to walk around picking fights in bars with that line.

Re: Rob Buck's guitar playing, I dunno about bum notes on Unplugged, which I've never heard, but his squealy sustain tone on the early stuff is just terrific, I think, and his superfast scale-playing solos on a lot of songs ("Death of Manolete," even) is pretty terrific. Basically it occurs to me that he was always kind of ahead of the curve on guitar sounds and tended to always sound great doing it, from those new-wave-isms to something like "Don't Talk," with those big sweeps of guitar -- I said earlier that "Maddox Table" puts Marr to shame, which would make "Don't Talk" something like their "How Soon is Now." (And again, the fucking guitar playing on "Maddox Table" -- COME ON, that spindly shit is TIGHT, let's not even get into it.) Beyond which I guess he kinda blanded out into blah, which is fine, though it was funny to hear little touches of his old high-up on the Gibson neck new-wave stuff come through later, like at the end of the solo on "What's the Matter Here."

GIANT post is mostly just cause it's late at night and I'm typing rapidly as a break from deep-cleaning my apartment, but mostly because yes, it's true, this was maybe the first band I was seriously obsessed with, so even with the stuff I don't think is so great anymore I can still very vividly remember how one might have appreciated it at the time.

(Also yes I'm ashamed of myself; there was that thread for like "what album would you write about in a 33 1/3 book," and I went on about Max Tundra but the truth is that YES, I might sadly be most qualified to do In My Tribe.)

"so what you're saying then is 'the reason the lyrics are great is that they're totally fucking awful!'"

... with these quotes from the post in question:

"I still find that lyric approach pretty charming through most of the early stuff, and I think she's actually quite good at it; I can't imagine many college girls writing better songs about multiple personality disorder than 'Katrina's Fair,'"

"'Death of Manolete' makes perfect sense and has loads of great details in it. enough that I can remember plenty of them even apart from my teenage Maniacs fandom -- 'there were women holding rosaries ... teenage girls in soft white dresses, standing silent, peace-respecting.'"

"How cutely and beautifully and period-piece early-80s collegiate is it"

"'Back o' the Moon,' which in terms of character-creation and period-history-creation is just plain the most nicely sophisticated moon-reference I can think of in a pop song"

No, he genuinely likes the stuff. I do, too.

you rock so hard.

2) "back o' the moon" is on wishing chair, not tribe.

3) one of my favorite phenomena in music/whatever is when the artist's creativity/originality/sophistication of ideas supersedes her ability to carry it all out technically. i was thinking about this over the weekend w/r/t to some bands i like that usually get labeled "primitive" or not-especially-masterful but whose work is actually full of really sharp arrangements that i could really see being the envy of more practiced musicians. 10km, at their most interesting, fall into this group.

keep in mind i'm not talking so much about natalie as i am lombardo, buck, and the others.

DUCK, FIRST ROW OF THE AUDIENCE! (Second and third rows just have to lean back a little.)

haha no, no no no! contrasting not comparing, dude!

I dig "Carnival" and "Trouble Me." Both good sunny pop songs.

There is some excellent guitar playing by Jennifer Turner on the former, and I suspect that if I listened to Blind Man's Zoo again I might find a gem or two that I've forgotten about. The rest of Ms. Merchant's work I can usually take or leave.

That said, please please let me never again hear "Because the Night." Has a great pedigree and all and I suppose I should like it, but in its bombast it always sounds to me like a lost Pat Benatar or maybe even Sheena Easton track from circa 1983.

i think it just started out as a pretty typical "ilm hates any female performer who isn't a nu-bubbledisco bimbo or adorably fucked-up rap chick" thread.

(xpost)

RESULT

MPuff, It is awful. And I always assumed she got the lyric wrong and said "Love is a [picnic?] blanket, on which we feed." Or so I'd like to believe.

Wow, I'll take "Blatant Mischaracterizations Of A Ginormous Group Of People" for $1200, Alex.

take it up with springsteen.

(ts: natalie's "because the night" vs pat benatar's "wuthering heights")

http://www.postmodern.com/~fi/pattipics/images/_easter.jpg

pete yorn? anyone wanna take a crack?

oh, nabisco's GREAT for that. it's wonderfully subversive.

nabisco, I was with you on those two My Favorite threads, if nothing else.

1. They have similar singing voices -- a low boomy range that projects out over the whole mix.

2. They have similar quirks of diction, both in terms of enunciation and word-choice -- see "Katrina's Fair" for the line "a journal laced with sedimentary prose," which is all-Morrissey and delivered like it, too. (Conversely, imagine 10,000 Maniacs covering "Ask.")

3. They both write abnormally character-based songs about one type of character -- Morrissey's teenage thugs and Merchant's human-interest cases.

4. They're both obsessed with the working class of the middle of the 20th century -- Morrissey's kitchen-sink and teakettle Englishness, Merchant's Catholic-immigrant union-worker upstate-NYness.

5. Merchant had a personal assistant named Morrissey, Morrissey had a personal assistant named Merchant.

6. "Hateful Hate" = "Meat is Murder," overblown to the point of camp, except that Morrissey cares about cattle and Merchant cares about Africans.

7. Both were rumored, during my freshman year of high school, to be sleeping with Michael Stipe.

8. I admit that Brittle Lemon is right about "if you don't mind / I will beat on your behind" not being quite as good as "a crack on the head / is what you get for (not) asking."

9. Both started off from a point of seeming totally sheltered and bookish and awkward and virginal, and writing in a way often described as "pretentious" about their bedroom enthusiasms. Merchant went to college and therefore obsessed about bookish things (you can seriously figure out her course schedule from the Hope Chest lyrics; hello song-about-De-Chirico), whereas Morrissey, to my knowledge, stayed home and therefore mostly thought about sex and his mother and sex with his mother.

10. Their last names both start with M / I freakin' said so.

Hahahahahaha

yeah, community college!

while at the same time showing very little comprehension and a heap of self righteousness.

cue "Gun Shy" from In My Tribe.

*goes to cry bitterly*

blind man's zoo is pretty awful though, it + traumatic experience meeting her totally outweighing what fond feelings i felt towards 'like the weather' or those late era tunes that probably remind me of clinton coming into office more than anything (except 'don't stop' maybe).

what the hell do you know? who are you, anyway?

She's an ugly girl, does it make you want to kill her?
She's an ugly girl, do you want to kick in her face?
She's an ugly girl, she doesn't pose a threat.
She's an ugly girl, does that make you feel safe?
Ugly girl, ugly girl, do you hate her
Cause she's pieces of you?

She's a pretty girl, does she make you think nasty thoughts?
She's a pretty girl, do you want to tie her down?
She's a pretty girl, do you call her a bitch?
She's a pretty girl, did she sleep with your whole town?
Pretty girl, pretty girl, do you hate her
Cause she's pieces of you?

You say he's a faggot, does it make you want to hurt him?
You say he's a faggot, do you want to bash in his brain?
You say he's a faggot, does he make you sick to your stomach?
You say he's a faggot, are you afraid you're just the same?
Faggot, Faggot, do you hate him
Cause he's pieces of you?

You say he's a Jew, does it mean that he's tight?
You say he's a Jew, do you want to hurt his kids tonight?
You say he's a Jew, he'll never wear that funny hat again.
You say he's a Jew as though being born were a sin.
Oh Jew, oh Jew, do you hate him
Cause he's pieces of you?

Oh God, that Jewel song -- how did my mother manage to listen to that crap? Oh yeah, I remember, impressionable influence from ex-boyfriend. Before 1997 she used to make fun of Jewel.

I must now slay humanity.

You still want it?

I quote one review that mentions lyrics, triggering a back-and-forth about the merit of those particular lyrics, and now ILM gives a shit about lyrical content as a whole? Wow!

I am so so so proud of Dan's new handle it isn't even funny.

This statement makes no sense. People on ILM who don't care about lyrical content have always been in the minorty and even among that group, it has never been the case that egregiously bad, intellectually offensive lyrics have been given a free pass, particularly when the accompanying music isn't stellar (for varying values of the word "stellar" obv).

blount your otm point about the reparations remark is kinda undone by sexist crap like this

On my morning bike ride, I go past the Vietnam memorial. And I couldn't help thinking of the "Slowest Parade" song.

*Double checks ot see if he wrote brian instead of brain there. No. Good.*

lol!!!!!

i'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's commentary about they're *ahem* glands...

maybe not. maybe my brains in the gutter.

she seems to be onto you all...

***OMFG IT'S THE TOTALLY TUBULAR ILX 1980s NOMINATIONS SUGGESTION THREAD***

"Planned Obsolescence" sounds very Joy Division-influenced.

BEFORE they remixed it!!! The bastards...

Dan, I assume you mean stuff like this? (TWR = Thin White Rope, I guess.)

TELL ME WHY DO YOU HATE THE JEW?? DO YOU HATE THE JEW BECAUSE HE IS YOU??

>Frankly, I'd much rather have a beer with
>the Sugar Ray dude than, say, Tori Amos (unless I had any chance of
>putting masking tape over her mouth and fucking her).

look who posted the sixth reply.

In '91, my band was recording an album at Bearsville
studios, and we came into town just as R.E.M. was wrapping
up 'Monster' - and 10,000 Maniacs was working in the
rehearsal barn. We had just started cutting basic tracks,
and I was sitting in the kitchen/game room smoking a
cigarette when Natalie walked in and started berating me for
smoking in the studio. I reminded her (probably a whole lot
more politley than she deserved) that my band was paying for
the studio and hers wasn't, and finished my cigarette.

If we dropped leaflets with the lyrics to "Pieces Of You" on them over Beirut, what do you think would happen?

revive

Dude, the whole thing that's so great about her lyrics -- especially the early ones -- is that they're so collegiate creative-writing assignments; if I remember correctly, "Tension" was the first song she and Lombardo wrote, and they lyrics were in actual fact from an intro creative-writing class Natalie was taking. Memories spawned by looking through your grandparents' old things: is there anything more college-sophomore lit? Hence my comment about current-day "women's lit" up above, and same goes for the Catholic working-class thing that runs through so much of her stuff, this constant excavation of what the mid-century experience of that might have been like, as with the (fucking AWESOME, seriously) "Maddox Table," which is all about Union immigrant furniture-workers (the video was all cut-together colorized tourism and factory footage of Jamestown), or "My Mother the War." (Suddenly I'd be curious to hear what ILX Mary, who I think has some upstate-NY working-class Catholic roots, would think of some of this stuff.) Anyway: I still find that lyric approach pretty charming through most of the early stuff, and I think she's actually quite good at it; I can't imagine many college girls writing better songs about multiple personality disorder than "Katrina's Fair," I like her enunciation (which is at least interesting and a decent signature and AS IF BELOVED MARK E. SMITH ENUNCIATES LIKE A HUMAN), and "Death of Manolete" makes perfect sense and has loads of great details in it, enough that I can remember plenty of them even apart from my teenage Maniacs fandom -- "there were women holding rosaries ... teenage girls in soft white dresses, standing silent, peace-respecting." (Yeah, there's something way too on-the-nose about "bred for one purpose only / to die in man's sport," but it's totally outweighed by her chirping cadence on the "neck neck, hook, poles of wood / the picadors stood eyes ablaze" part, and still, I mean, c'mon, why do you people want to STOP people from writing cool songs about the deaths of toreadors? Seriously. If she'd written lots of boring songs about dating people -- which NB I find it hard to imagine she was doing a lot of back then, unless they were like 35-year-old creepy academics -- then you'd have nothing more to make fun of than the enunciation, so CREDIT FOR TRYING. How cutely and beautifully and period-piece early-80s collegiate is it that not one but TWO songs on Hope Chest had lyrics adapted from Wilfred Owen WWI poems?) Anyway again: the lyrics on The Wishing Chair are like massively not issue-type things, which may have been kind of a "first real album" backoff and may have been because of the weird upstate history-rock the band suddenly got into, and maybe that's a better place to see how Natalie's lit approach to writing lyrics could create some plain just good lines, e.g. just spend some time unpacking the twists on "the man who's left to divvy up time is a miser / he's got a silver coin, only let's it shine / for hours, while you're sleeping away," from "Back o' the Moon," which in terms of character-creation and period-history-creation is just plain the most nicely sophisticated moon-reference I can think of in a pop song. It's on In My Tribe where the issue-per-song thing starts to become a bit much, but it's still interesting there, if you ask kinda-biased me (and c'mon, don't get all snobby toward trad writing, there's some great stuff in "Verdi Cries," if not in, say, "Gun Shy," and the whole Verdi-through-the-wall thing is so nice that I decided at some point it must be lifted from a short story, maybe A.S. Byatt, but so far as I can tell it's not). And then basically with Blind Man's Zoo it's like GEEZ, okay, one-issue-per-song, yes, these songs are actually alright but take a step back, you've done alcoholism and illiteracy and now teen pregnancy and colonialism and Vietnam vets, lay back a little. I mean, like, "Hateful Hate" -- the best way to reconcile this kind of thing is to think of someone like Morrissey, where his moments of total self-parody ridiculousness are maybe kind of the charm, where laughing at his idiosyncrasies is like part and parcel of loving and enjoying them.

Re: Rob Buck's guitar playing, I dunno about bum notes on Unplugged, which I've never heard, but his squealy sustain tone on the early stuff is just terrific, I think, and his superfast scale-playing solos on a lot of songs ("Death of Manolete," even) is pretty terrific. Basically it occurs to me that he was always kind of ahead of the curve on guitar sounds and tended to always sound great doing it, from those new-wave-isms to something like "Don't Talk," with those big sweeps of guitar -- I said earlier that "Maddox Table" puts Marr to shame, which would make "Don't Talk" something like their "How Soon is Now." (And again, the fucking guitar playing on "Maddox Table" -- COME ON, that spindly shit is TIGHT, let's not even get into it.) Beyond which I guess he kinda blanded out into blah, which is fine, though it was funny to hear little touches of his old high-up on the Gibson neck new-wave stuff come through later, like at the end of the solo on "What's the Matter Here."

GIANT post is mostly just cause it's late at night and I'm typing rapidly as a break from deep-cleaning my apartment, but mostly because yes, it's true, this was maybe the first band I was seriously obsessed with, so even with the stuff I don't think is so great anymore I can still very vividly remember how one might have appreciated it at the time.

-- nabiscothingy, Sunday, August 7, 2005 10:00 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link
Also

is great

I read this as "terminate Natalie Merchant's employment".

Things I would do to get to write something really long about Hope Chest: pretty much anything short of actually pitching or mentioning it to anyone

dude, 33 and a 1/3rd it

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/01/07/arts/Merchant190.jpg

You know, she wrote some great character lyrics, back before they started turning into human-interest stories. "Maddox Table" is one of my favorites, and it's great, getting all the good stuff that comes short of actually tipping into pathos. But you can see the parts where she's a little on the nose, like the chorus metaphor; it's too bad those parts wound up winning, because the rest of it has awesome details. (The thumb! And the neat rhetorical closing with Dolly!)

The legs of Maddox kitchen tables
My whole life, I twisted on a lathe
In a foreman's torrent, my first English was
"Faster, boys, if you want your pay"
Barking commands, loud and simple, we could all obey

Then I was forever pulling slivers
Rubbed the sawdust always deeper in my eye
Varnish vapor that could linger on my skin, it held tight
The whine of spinning blades still echoes
To bother my sleep at night

See that ox stamped dead center
On the letterhead of the company mail
Four decades, a spitting image
Of the animal that I portrayed
At Maddox table, a yoke was carved for my neck

Sun through the window oil spattered
And in Mason jars tricked plenty of seeds to thrive
The standing joke around the shop was
With my green thumb anything would grow
My part was to laugh, show where an ornery jig
Had cut it at the knuckle bone

See that ox trademark burned into
Every stick of furniture from horn to tail
Four decades, a spitting image
Of the animal that I portrayed
At Maddox Table a yoke was carved for my neck --
Was tailor made

O my Dolly was a weak, not a burdened, girl
Treat her to a piece of vaudeville,
A Wintergarden moving picture show
Bemus Point on July Sundays, by trolley we'd go

To your benefit we's strike or bargain
with the waving fist a union man
Not just for smokes, spirits, candy, and cologne
But for automobile keys, cash in the bank
And the deed on a place called home

Jesus, was I drunk upthread.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto)

Tiger Lily = secret guitar nerd album

OMG those lyrics! like outakes from a undergrad creative writing seminar. natalie needs to be locked in a room w/the recorded works of merle haggard and dolly parton for about ten years...

I was going to make a joke along the lines of "can you imagine somebody actually singing that?" until I remembered the singer in question.

Gosh, Nabisco! Just reading those lyrics again gave me goose bumps and had tears welling in my eyes. I too was especially enamored with her lyrics in those days, and her enunciation. I don't think people really give her enough credit for her early lyrics. She was truly doing her own unique thing, and the band were as well. Fantastic stuff.

I appreciate that long piece you wrote upthread that remy quoted. Would love to read whatever you might want to write about Hope Chest. Type away!

Natalie Merchant reminds me of about half of my ex-girlfriends.

NEVER AGAIN.

Look upthread, Coleman, we talked about this: 10,000 Maniacs' first song literally was from an undergrad writing assignment! That vibe is a big part of what's awesome about their college records, actually.

She sings "Maddox Table" pretty awesomely, by the way -- it's actually focused enough on the guitar push that you wouldn't catch a lot of the lyrics on first listening. There's a bit at the end where the guitar sound gets scrapier and the drums really start pushing, and she hits that "not just for smokes" line in a real rush; probably as energetic/frantic as that band ever managed.

And man, as someone who has taught undergrad writing classes, I will say that if anyone came in with that standing joke / ornery jig / knuckle bone bit, I'd say that was fine detail

well now you just explained NM/10,000's appeal, something I've always found utterly mystifying.

(sighs)

nabisco OTM damn it

Things I would do to get to write something really long about Hope Chest: pretty much anything short of actually pitching or mentioning it to anyone

A pity Stylus is gone.

her version of "Which Side Are You On" is great

t/s bands i have seen open for r.e.m.: 10,000 maniacs vs. radiohead

(they were both pretty good tbh)

It's about the tits, for one thing

http://www.lovepeace.org/vos/album/01album/01natalie.jpg

p.s. I am a feminist

Was Hope Chest recorded at SUNY Fredonia?

(I really like "Planned Obsolescence". I actually had no idea this band sounded like this.)

You know who this band sounds like? THE CRANBERRIES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pIguaB3fro

This is for Blount.

NO THEY DO NOT FUCKING SOUND LIKE THE CRANBERRIES!

*challenge you to a duel*

Sundar has the right attitude.

this is probably an uncomfortable perspective, but: I grew up in an abusive household and was about one or two years free of that house (LOL as if, right) when "What's the Matter Here?" came out and boy did I ever want to hate it. Like a lot of people from situations like mine I will often greet expressions of sympathy or support with extreme suspicion. The song got a lot of airplay in southern California and I got real defensive-hater about it but man one day driving down Indian Hill I let it play and it hit me like fucking category 5 hurricane. It was the bridge that did it, the "if I'm the only witness to your madness." Just total helpless emotional collapse for me. That kind of release is a rare thing to get from music or elsewhere but the song develops in such an even, gentle way; getting to that difficult-to-access emotional center just happens really easily. So when people wanna hate on that jam, I want to say, it has genuine power. You have to make yourself pretty vulnerable to feel it, but it's something else, and I'm grateful for it.

I think it's a toss-up as to whether "What's The Matter Here?", "Like The Weather" or "Eat For Two" is their best song.

thanks again, John D.

so "Magazine" is the main track of 70's I should try, then?

I guess I'll always love her: the Maniacs were the gateway for a lot of serious musical exploration in high school. I can still sing on call most of In My Tribe and Blind Man's Zoo, even "Hateful Hate."

I still love "Noah's Dove," "Eat For Two," and "A Campfire Song" to bits.

I very much like the cover of John Prine's "Hello in There" on this single:

http://www.mtv.com/shared/media/images/amg_covers/200/drc000/c003/c003895u48a.jpg

^^ Does the single version have Stipe and Billy Bragg on it? (I've only ever heard it done live with the two of them.)

MANIACS HATERS: Note what Sundar is saying about Hope Chest. Nobody ever wants to believe it, but their college stuff is ... amazing oddball new-wave, lots of fake dub and fake Afro-pop, kinda wild and weird, and definitely very different from their eventual public image. Anyone into stuff like early Talking Heads or Red Krayola's UK records should give a quick listen and just, umm, pretend it's some obscure long-lost band, if you're that Maniacs-phobic.

remember when they were on Sabrina?

I think that Robert Buck is an underrated guitarist and that their best song is "Don't Talk."

^^ Does the single version have Stipe and Billy Bragg on it? (I've only ever heard it done live with the two of them.)

No, it's more of an acoustic, unplugged thing in the studio, Natalie and the band-- the single also an acoustic version of "Gun Shy" w/ violin (wonder if that's Mary) that's also pretty good.

heard 10,000 maniacs in the cvs

thought of nabisco

Everything nabisco writes is indelible. He's OTM about Hope Chest, if you're into 80s exploration.

I love the Hope Chest era 10,000 Maniacs a ton!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7WCpMThejA

lol at revival of this thread

meh

I will rep for "Hope Chest" and the first album. After that - bleurgh.

natalie merchant dope chest

Nonesuch Records releases Natalie Merchant's Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings on November 6, 2015. This collection of all-new recordings revisits Merchant's multi-platinum solo debut, Tigerlily, originally released in 1995 following her departure from 10,000 Maniacs. The new release is accompanied by a documentary DVD. The memoir-style film contains live performances, archival footage, and interviews with musicians, friends, and fans about the influence the songs of Tigerlily have had over the past 20 years.

Tigerlily was described by the New York Times in 1995 as "an anomaly in a music scene in which reckless female performers reign supreme." The album sold more than five million copies worldwide and featured the popular hit singles "Carnival," "Wonder," and "Jealousy." Paradise Is There presents the songs as they have evolved over the past two decades of live performance. Joining Merchant on the album, which she produced herself, are her long-time band members Gabriel Gordon (guitar), Jesse Murphy (bass), Uri Sharlin (piano & accordion), and Allison Miller (drums), as well as a string quartet—Scot Moore (violin), Shawn Moore (violin), Marandi Hostetter (viola), and Stanley Moore (cello)—plus Sharel Cassity (saxophone) and guest vocals by Simi Stone, Gail Ann Dorsey, and Elizabeth Mitchell.

Tigerlily Turns 20, and Natalie is Merchant-ing Harder Than Ever

"Tigerlily is the most significant album I've made because it defined me as an independent songwriter after 12 years in 10,000 Maniacs," Merchant explains, "It also created a bond between me and an audience that has supported and sustained me for 20 years. I decided to make the Paradise Is There album and film for them, to honor the journey that we, and these songs, have all taken. Songs have new life breathed into them every time they are sung. Time has changed them as much as it has changed me." She continues, "I wanted to record these songs again because it seemed unfair to confine them to the way that they were performed in the studio in 1995. They are so versatile, whether I strip them bare or enhance them with strings, and they lend themselves so well to re-arrangement.

"There are several songs from Tigerlily—'Carnival', 'Wonder', 'Beloved Wife', 'River', and 'Cowboy Romance'—that remain at the core of my live shows. They still have relevance to me and, by the response they receive, I can tell that they still resonate with my audience," Merchant says. "I've spent a full year preparing this album and film, and the process gave me a chance to take the measure of everything that's happened because of Tigerlily. The distance this music traveled once it left my hands is humbling, and I am moved by how many lives it has touched along the way.

Seems like a money grab to me, just in time for the holidays. "Let's record these simple songs again! I'm playing this progression slower than 20 years ago...on this other track let's crank the kick drum..."

"The distance this music has travelled ..." What is she talking about?

These kind of projects usually also indicate the fact that the artist in question doesn't have anything new to say. Prior to last year's eponymous album, Ms Merchant hadn't released an album of original material since 2001. No doubt the well of inspiration has again run dry and we'll be waiting until 2030 for another proper album.

If she's going to record a slower version of "Carnival," then this new version must sound like a 45 played at 33.

These kind of projects usually also indicate the fact that the artist in question doesn't have anything new to say. Prior to last year's eponymous album, Ms Merchant hadn't released an album of original material since 2001. No doubt the well of inspiration has again run dry and we'll be waiting until 2030 for another proper album.

is this paragraph in the original story

came to make a sick joke about the river phoenix song being resuscitated but decided that wouldn't honor the journey we've all taken in the last 20 years

rip dude

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wde2EhfRq10

apart from the maudlin lyrics her vocal performance is bizarre; all blurry and slurry (like she's the one who's wasted) then leaps up into nat's signature stridency. even if that's conscious, oy vey.

Maudlin is a good descriptor. Her songs are like old molasses.

"Jealousy" is the least aggrieved song about jealousy ever.

The hook:

"Ooh. Jealousy."

ok

one of the lowest of low points in my life was living in wilkes-barre, pennsylvania in 1987 and trying to convince myself that In My Tribe was an okay album worth listening to.

ha

I wonder how they'll 'rework' that one.

'ooh ooh, jealous - yyyyy'

one of the lowest of low points in my life was living in wilkes-barre, pennsylvania in 1987 and trying to convince myself that In My Tribe was an okay album worth listening to.

― scott seward, Tuesday, November 24, 2015

a shiver in my bones just thinking!

I'm tired of the excuses Natalie Merchant uses. "They're my songs, I'll do as I see fit." But who gave her the right to do that?

this thread is amazing

OMG those lyrics! like outakes from a undergrad creative writing seminar. natalie needs to be locked in a room w/the recorded works of merle haggard and dolly parton for about ten years...

― m coleman, Thursday, January 31, 2008 5:59 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was going to make a joke along the lines of "can you imagine somebody actually singing that?" until I remembered the singer in question.

― m coleman, Thursday, January 31, 2008 6:01 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gosh, Nabisco! Just reading those lyrics again gave me goose bumps and had tears welling in my eyes. I too was especially enamored with her lyrics in those days, and her enunciation. I don't think people really give her enough credit for her early lyrics. She was truly doing her own unique thing, and the band were as well. Fantastic stuff.

I appreciate that long piece you wrote upthread that remy quoted. Would love to read whatever you might want to write about Hope Chest. Type away!

― Bimble, Thursday, January 31, 2008 4:19 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Natalie Merchant reminds me of about half of my ex-girlfriends.

NEVER AGAIN.

― Pleasant Plains, T

"Like the Weather" is the only bearable thing this person has ever been involved with.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Sunday, August 7, 2005 11:47 AM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh dear

post

haha that's why nabisco never liked me

The only good thing about "weather" is the percussion. Not NM's lyrics.

What a cold and rainy day
Where on earth has the sun hid away

5th grade student or professional songwriter? You decide.

I do actually like 10K Maniacs/Merchant. Kind of on the same level as A Prairie Home Companion. It's a hate-like. It's so lame and cloistered and self-satisfied that it circles back around to charming. Or something. It might be telling that I also enjoy doing not especially flattering impressions of both Merchant and Keillor.

in retrospect i might rank Our Time in Eden as their best post-Hope Chest

LAY NATALIE MERCHANT

I have no time for anything she did post-Maniacs but I like 10KM very much

10KM: A Tribute To Natalie Merchant & 10,000 Maniacs--Now Appearing At An Artesian Coffee Bar Near You!

I used to defend Natalie and the Maniacs, but after that self-titled album, I just don't care anymore.

"The distance this music has travelled ..." What is she talking about?

― calstars, Tuesday, November 24, 2015

from Tower Records to Amazon penny bin.

haha
I think it's her upstate NY, insular, crunchy, candle-lighting, fall leaves, knitting, yoga, bagel with cream cheese buying vibe that puts me off, but I can't be sure.

well it sounds nice until you hear it

Woodstock -- where white people sing blues and genius punk rock POCs sell them veggies or support them with tasty guitar licks.

10-CD collection with some re-recorded stuff w/string quartet coming

this is just lovely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_932kTYjRi8

The Nat-less 10KM was recently in town, still keepin' the dream alive 20+ years after she left their building.

That's a pretty cynical move, making people spring for 8 CDs of music they likely already have in order to get the two new ones. Will the last two also be available separately? Thought not.

not only that, but you specifically are required by law to purchase the box set

Thanks, Oblama.

I like the Lloyd Cole-esque approach to unloading unreleased songs

a merchant trying to sell us something you say?

Yeesh, I used to really genuinely love her music, but her past ten years of output has been very not good.

Furthermore, 'Frozen Charlotte' has always been easily favorite song of hers and that new version just flat out sucks.

gravitas

who doesn't need some encouraging words?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10T0NkO7KRQ

thanks, natalie.

["just can't last" (2001)]

(is this defend the indefensible now?)

Wow, nabisco has some remarkable posts ITT (before it goes totally OTT*)

*off the rails, natch

(oh I guess that would be “OTR”. Natalie-level wordsmith I ain’t… plus it’s late)

Something bad happened to Merchant along the way, no question (…) And so they could go from new-wave weirdos with their awesome teenage-girl oddball singer to, umm, just Merchant's well-meaning "actually I quite like very old soul music" soccer-mom vibe.

Fwiw, I think nabisco is very Off The Mark here… Nat’s lyrics on Eden are amazing, IMO (and simply in a “mature songwriter” mode that is obv different from her precocious early style).

keep in mind: in the early days, she was also trying to outdo michael stipe by singing all that mumbly slurred shit loud af. especially on the early maniacs stuff, i think of her as like an american liz fraser. her writing/singing style arch actually follows stipe's fairly loosely up until the late 90s.

(just read her wiki for the first time ever. apparently they were a couple at one point. til.)

(also looked up some reviews of her solo stuff on rym - jfc the same old misogynistic talking points are still following her around. ugh.)

ophelia: soft rock breakup epic disguised as narrative story album. well of course it's overbearing. darn pretty stuff tho. she rarely sounded better. maybe my favorite thing she ever did?

ask me abt old selfies of me+the ophelia cd cover or actually don't, pls. fantastic album tho.

i have no particular stance on NM or her music but iirc there are stories on this board of her being v. unpleasant irl

i like ‘our time in eden’ at any rate

I'll rep for her version of "Which Side Are You On"

Jumping off from Austin's last post in the remasters thread, I remember Motherland being a pretty good album, albeit a bit too earnest in spots (it's Merchant, so duh). There's a op-ed song about teen girls & body image that's pretty cringe (it's Merc...).

I also recall her ACL performance promoting it to be worthwhile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoRm3SObuKM

There's a op-ed song about teen girls & body image that's pretty cringe

what's more cringe: the song or the fact that i, a 42 year old man-looking person, can recite the lyrics to at least one of the verses and the chorus?

like i said: I GET IT - SHE’S NOT COOL. but she's a really fascinating figure to me... like that song -"tell yourself" is the title- she must have had some really intense feelings about that to just go full cheese force. it's a really hokey song, but i buy it y'know. she really believed there were 13 year old girls buying her albums in 2001. that's fantastic and conceited and... really fucking funny for all the wrong reasons, but the world is filled with pimps+hoes, man. maybe some lifelong maniacs fan had become a junior high school teacher and played it for their students and someone heard it and had a better day. idk man, just... let her cook, dang.

I have the sense she would not be much fun at all to hang with IRL, but that's never spoiled my enjoyment of her 10kM songs.

I bet she’s one of those insufferables who bring their dogs to the bar

Natalie Merchant sounds like a calligraphy teacher doing karaoke. That's not necessarily a criticism.

― You will notice a small sink where your sofa once was. (Old Lunch), Saturday, 5 December 2020 17:26 (two years ago) link

thx for posting that grisso. never seen it — she sounds really good! they don't seem as inspired when playing the then-new material. hrmph. i've had a theory for a while that there were some albums that either got enhanced by 9.11 —meaning they saw maybe a little extra popularity because of their perceived relevance— and others that got shafted by it. motherland was never going to tear up the charts, but she was coming off her most popular single ever with "kind+generous" (which they play on this acl set; a set to promote motherland and a set which opens with a song that's also not on motherland lol) and "just can't last" was the obvious follow-up. idk how it did, i don't follow charts and can't be bothered to look, but i know it wasn't as popular as "kind+generous." which is a shame because it's easily the better song. i think the big pop stage back then only had room for one rootsy classic rockin old schooler record and love+theft had also just come out, so she had no chance.

Maybe it's bc I was in grade school when Tigerlily came out, but I still unironically love the singles from that album. So yeah...

let her cook

natalie merchant sounds like a high school english teacher who's been into the wine coolers again.

natalie merchant sounds like a meter maid singing along to the radio between writing tickets.

natalie merchant sounds like she might get mad if you say the word "fart" around her.

natalie merchant sounds like a weirdly tuneful deflating balloon.

you okay

just enjoying that wonderful acl set grisso posted and thinking memes.

(this "break your heart" that opens the set is outstanding, btw.)

I have the sense she would not be much fun at all to hang with IRL, but that's never spoiled my enjoyment of her 10kM songs.

― This field is required (morrisp),

Ha. I must have mentioned this on another thread, but after a recent Library of Congress interview with Joni Mitchell thing that my wife attended, my wife was waiting outside for an uber and ended up talking to someone about how enjoyable it was to hear Joni Mitchell talk and sing. The woman turned about to be Natalie Merchant and they also just exchanged small talk in the uber about Natalie's daughter being in college and the hotel Natalie was staying out. Admittedly it wasn't a long time, but my wife (who's a Natalie fan) enjoyed the moment.

Her new-ish album is really fricking good.

Here is a possibly true story: I used to live in a smallish town where a lot of people knew each other.

My friend A. had a friend B. Who was going through a difficult time. So A. called the local radio station and requested the song "Trouble Me," with a dedication to B. As in, "you're going through a lot and we are here to help."

Unfortunately the DJ misunderstood the instructions and instead played "Eat for Two." As in, "I am pregnant."

For weeks thereafter, our friends were like, "Hey, I hear you're pregnant. What's up with that?"

Her new-ish album is really fricking good.

excited about this. I do think she's kind of a singles artist, I find the albums uneven, but on your word I'll look into the new one

Hope Chest is really good and weird huh. It sort of sounds like what I imagined Throwing Muses' first album would sound like based on just reading about it - with added dub.

I really have never heard anything quite like their early stuff, in approach or style (to echo nabisco above). Not that I’ve heard every postpunk band that emerged in every small town and put something on wax…

Somehow, they managed to be literate and experimental and eclectic, yet accessible—even “poppy”—all at the same time…

What they do in "The Latin One," "Grey Victory," and "Orange" is so audacious and impressive – pairing these bright, hooky, irresistible melodies with grimly unflinching lyrics about the darkest of subjects. I don't know how they "pull it off," but IMO they do.

Was the opening of "Death of Manolte" inspired by R.E.M.'s "Catapult"? Seems like it could have been, huh... (Secrets of the I Ching was recorded in "March, July 1983"; and Murmur came out that April).

*Manolete (listen for yourself):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39PrNhR1fU

keep in mind: in the early days, she was also trying to outdo michael stipe by singing all that mumbly slurred shit loud af. especially on the early maniacs stuff, i think of her as like an american liz fraser. her writing/singing style arch actually follows stipe's fairly loosely up until the late 90s.

please compile the best of natalie merchant - american liz fraser playlist.

honestly, hope chest is the place to start if that piques you.

thank you for these thoughts, morris. i think part of the reason it all works -especially on the first couple albums- is because her singing style doesn't make her lyrics very easy to understand and they have a really lush, jangly, nice sound on those records. at first for me, it was really easy to get caught up in just the sound of the whole band and that was enough. i think there's quite a bit of cross-pollination between them and r.e.m. in several categories. i wouldn't be surprised at all if they were learning current r.e.m. songs to plant seeds for ideas of their own.

bad crass joke time! dang, robert buck stole everything didn't he?

I didn't realize that 10k Maniacs kept going post-Merchant and is still touring.

They have had various singers, which is of course their right; I am not sure I would buy a ticket.

Technically I take it they had to make some kind of arrangement w/Natalie for that right (they originally went by John & Mary, Rob, Steve, Dennis, & Jerry – which really rolls off the tongue!)

My favorite banger from The Wishing Chair is "Cotton Alley"... I don't even quite get the scenario in the lyrics (it's on some Anne Shirley / Gilbert Blythe sh1t)... Merchant sings the song like she has a throat full of yogurt... but damn, that song makes me crazy!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-9xKzjCTTM

On that tip, a #22 Modern Rock Radio hit (as a b-side to "Candy...")!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeuwruLyDow

I owned that CD single. It had the essential Lulu cover sung with Michael Stipe from the MTV inaugural ball and the Maniacs doing Iris DeMent's "Let the Mystery Be" with David Byrne.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MfW9zTT-e4

Yeah, I have it too – the CD maxi-single also has "Few & Far Between" (that's actually the featured song), bringing together the album's two horn-accented boppers.

Was that the same single where they covered a song called Sally Anne? “You go home with Sally Anne, you. go. home.”

That was really good, I would listen to that on repeat for a while.

I happened to rebuy a cheap cd of Blind Man’s Zoo a few days ago to give them another shot and ugh, no no no.

In Jr High I was really charmed by the These Are Days video, which was my first exposure to them. I wound up with several albums but eventually sold them off.

xp (Oh, the "Candy Everyone Wants" on that disc is also from the Inaugural Ball, w/Stipe)

You were charmed by that video? That's impressive... it's so awkward! Love the song, tho

generally speaking, i find our time in eden is a very overlooked album. the first few songs alone are album highlights on anywhere else.

-on

i know it's a used bin staple, but it's got zero retro love, which i lament. such a pretty album.

Co-sign… it’s a forgotten gem.

I was in junior high! I haven't seen it since then, I'm sure it's corny as hell. I remember somebody had "hug me" or "hold me" written on them somewhere and for some reason that moved me. Probably because I was desperate for someone to hold me.

First time I learn that OTIE is underrated! Big seller, most of its songs are part of the Maniacs canon insofar as they have one.

underrated v overlooked fite!

overcooked more like it

Okay, I just rewatched it and *cRiNgE* lol it's not the worst video but Natalie dancing a jig like she's a Wim Wenders angel up on high is pretty funny.

A cute young girl (probably 14 or so, the age I was when I saw it) lifts up the bottom of her shirt and it says "squeeze me slow" and that is what made me swoon and compelled me to buy 5 or so Maniacs cds. But they did have some good songs. Funny thing: in my memory the scenes of the kids running around in the woods were in vibrant color, but it's black and white.

Apparently the Sally Ann song is from the Candy Everybody Wants single and it's my favorite thing they recorded. It's a cover, the original was by the Horse Flies. Her voice doesn't always work for me, but there's something about the way it curls around the words, and the violin... sigh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyHUJS0XqqE

You win a prize.
For that.

I was thinking of posting about "Kind and Generous" in the Legacy Song thread, but I just listened and was all "Oh, it's that 'LaLa LaLa Thank You' song, yeah that was huge."

what did Don 'n' Ghost of Glenn think of her?

I'll write something, but first I did a gis to see if there was ever a pic of Don & Natalie together (they did both play the Clinton inaugural), but sadly there doesn't appear to be any on the 'net. I then thought if say there was a photo op pic them from 1989, it could symbolize every inappropriate professor-pupil hetero relationship of the era.

Fun fact. My family of origin really liked to stay at the Athenaeum Hotel in Chautauqua, New York (near Jamestown, which produced Natalie and the Maniacs).

My father says he was walking through the lobby and Natalie was drifting in and out between the columns of the portico, recording a music video. I was not there. Plus my father is a compulsive liar and a drunk-ass fabulist. So I paid it no mind.

Then I saw the video and I said, "shit, he may have actually been telling the truth," because in that video she is, in fact, dancing precisely there. Where I once helped a toddler untangle a kite string from his underpants.

First time I learn that OTIE is underrated! Big seller, most of its songs are part of the Maniacs canon insofar as they have one.

If they have a canon, I wouldn’t have guessed many of those songs were on it! (only two show up on that 2004 best-of comp). To the extent I ever see the band come up, it’s generally the hit cover song from their biggest seller MTV Unplugged).

(Oh I’m sorry, that comp has three tracks from the album… which is still fewer than the two albums before it. In My Tribe has five… geez, The Wishing Chair only gets one!)

Where I once helped a toddler untangle a kite string from his underpants.

remember when music videos could just be random images of nonsense things happening?

that sentence could be describing one of those.
(and in the one i'm imagining, it's not even for a natalie merchant song. she's just out of focus in the background, dancing around like you said. our main concern is the kite situation. the song the video is promoting is very catchy and upbeat, very "feel good jam.")

A buddy of mine watched her in the early days huffing markers onstage (and twirling around in a skirt with no underwear). She is now playing with symphony orchestras. So, yeah, she's grown up (and her new album is really solid, if also a bit stolid).

It's easy to make that claim when markers doesn't post here anymore.

She and Stipe came into the record store I worked at in college (10,000 Maniacs were opening for R.E.M. in town that night). This would have been . . . 1985? I thought they were a couple of homeless people.

1985 seems too early. It might have been the 1986 show. Camper Van Beethoven opened for them then. I think they were a couple then, so maybe they were just hanging out.

https://lastfm.freetls.fastly.net/i/u/ar0/398be0596de44ff6abd2552f5bf543cf.jpg

That photo's from later though, it was taken at the MTV Inaugural Ball in 1993.

listening to 10,000 Maniac's first album (Wishing Chair) right now, I really dig this, definitely in the jangly post REM college rock vein but has a unique feel

guitar playing is great, reminds me of Marr a bit

Some of those guitar lines are wtf in the best way

yes! very inventive and odd

TWC wasn't their first album though, that was Secrets of the I Ching. xps

hmmm that's not on streaming for some reason

ums- hope chest

that's the first 2 eps on one disc

It was on a small indie. All the songs are on Hope Chest

x-post!

It was reissued (along with their début EP Human Conflict No. 5) as Hope Chest, you'll probably find it under that.

xps lol

I mean, who else in America was recording folk rock with Indestructible Beat of Soweto guitars?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiBv1VPZjaY

For some reason they faffed around with the running order of the songs on The Wishing Chair for the CD (and presumably streaming) versions. The album flows much better with the original vinyl running order IMO.

Huh, I didn't know they did that (they added a bunch of songs, too). I've only ever known the CD version

Thanks for the Hope Chest heads up all! Will check it out

"About the Weather" has some interesting production choices...the track generally has a good amount of classic 80s reverb on it, even exaggerated on the lead vocal at times (there's a long tail on the last words of lines during the chorus for instance), but then the guitar sounds super dry and immediate and panned hard right -- almost sounds like a DI guitar, cool contrast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te7bbWBXusk

Cool to see some discussion/appreciation of Hope Chest. It's the only Maniacs I play regularly, in fact I just listened again last night thanks to this thread. Natalie's wordy lit class lyrics, delivered with maximum incomprehensibility and set to oddball calypso new wave, is really unique and charming.

I like how with "Planned Obsolescence" and "My Mother the War," they were like – "Yeah, 'punk,' we know what it is... we're not really into it, but here's our take."

i just started hope chest and the beginning of "planned obsolescence" reminded me of "public image" for a sec

the guitar playing on that track is bonkers, all squiggles

Yeah Robert Buck loved his pedal board.

looking at some of my initial thoughts about hope chest from 2009-

Imagine Johnny Marr playing guitar on the first Throwing Muses album and throw a sort of sporadic reggae slant into the mix and you have the first recordings of 10,000 Maniacs. It's your basic new wave formula for something that, by all reasonable logic, shouldn't work, but does because of the simplicity of the arrangements and tunes.

and yes, "planned obsolescence" is delectable.

lol I'm glad I'm not the only one who hears early Throwing Muses - though in some ways you could describe Kristin and Natalie as diametrically opposed in terms of their lyrical approach.

There's a thing about how if you took Hamlet and Lear and switched protagonists, neither play would be longer than 15 minutes.

Now I am trying to imagine Natalie singing Hips and Makers, or Kristin singing Blind Man's Zoo and... I admit I would kinda like to hear that.

Urgh maybe it's actually more likely to be said of Hamlet and Macbeth, but you get the the idea

Those guitars on "Planned Obsolescence"!

Back of the Moon is such a great song- I recently realized I can only understand the lyrics when I am readin g along with the song - which increased my appreciation. ALso one of the people of which I think "why such good songs for a breif period then not much good for decades? "

What's the saying, you have your whole life to write your first album, but only 6 months to write your second?

I recently realized I can only understand the lyrics when I am reading along with the song

The first time I saw them back in the 80s I thought it might be another language, or at least heavily accented English. Her lyrics, especially early on, are dense and "literary," and then she often condenses or divides syllables in odd ways to make them fit the music. I totally get the early Stipe and Liz Fraser connections.

There was a brief moment (before I became a fan) where I got them confused with the Sugarcubes… I knew one of the bands had an Icelandic singer, and I assumed it was Merchant (due to her enunciation).

Getting that goddawful "wonder" song stuck- and i mean STUCK - in my head because of this revive has been the worst music-related experience i can remember, would you kindly refrain from killing my soul.

"Jealousy" is worse: the least peeved jealousy anthem ever written.

Ooh.
Jealousy.

In favor of NM:
* her commentary in the Women Who Rock doc was enjoyable and it's fun to see her again. She clearly DNGAF
* she has a documented weird sense of humor because in the Lilith Fair oral history she admits to spraying Liz Phair with a squirtgun in the face even though she had just done her makeup

I never want to hear her singing voice again tbh but as a person I support her quietly goofy and puckish demeanor.

I will add that In My Tribe was one of the 10 tapes that I had when I had a 10-cassette container and I don't think I could listen to it today. Being reminded of the period of my life when 10K Maniacs was a full 1/10 of my listening (beyond radio) honestly scares me, do not wish to revisit middle school. Even thinking about "Peace Train" makes my stomach turn.

I revisited Blind Man's Zoo y'day; my sense/recollection was that it would be kind of a drag (due to the heavy-handed lyrics), but the songs are good!! (especially in the first half). Great melodies & performances, as usual. "Hateful Hate" is a definite skip – but other than that, it's not an LP to sleep on... I think its bad rep is somewhat unjustified.

Not only does Nat lay all her cards on the table in "Headstrong" (re: the pointlessness of trying to change her mind about anything), the "rock anthem" guitar sound on that song is pretty remarkable / unique for the band.

It's been sitting on my shelf pretty much neglected since 1987. I'll give it another try, but my interest in them post-Wishing Chair wanes considerably.

"Hateful Hate" is a stupid song, though.

Well I said it's a skip!

(Dan P. – if you limited tolerance for even In My Tribe, I doubt a revisit of these albums will really move the needle for you...)

Well I said it's a skip!

― This field is required (morrisp),

Looks liked I skipped your post!

that early maniacs vibe is like a stoned altered images. good stuff

make it stop make it stop make it stop 😭

God's own creation

Stoned Altered Images OTM