LAY OFF NATALIE MERCHANT

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.