LAY OFF NATALIE MERCHANT

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