not in my tribe.
10000 Maniacs and The Sundays. Two bands I was very enthusiastic about in my late teens. Sadly though, we have grown apart. I hate it when this happens. I love my music and feel bad when I prove to be faithless. (I'm not a big fan of Faithless either, but we were never that close).
First, the Maniacs. Natalie Merchant has a great voice. Robert Buck did some ...interesting things on guitar. And I still love her voice (sorry Robert), but the projects she has put it in strike me as less well judged the older I get. A lot of 10000 Maniacs output is just plain embarassing. Heavy handed moralising with painful rhymes. One review I read recently described them as a great cover band and that's nasty but not entirely unfair. They have good taste in others material ( Iris DeMent, Tom Waits etc), but roughly half of their own stuff is utterly awkward and uncomfortable in that "outraged adolescent poetry" way. On a completely shallow note, all of their videos are hideously dorky as well, though we can perhaps blame the eighties for that. And to get completely personal, Natalie's frequently appalling fashion choices strike me as far too close to all my decisions about dresses in my twenties for me to be able to look without a wince of recognition. Ah! So baggy! Why did I hide my bum for most of my youth? I blame college rock, y'all. A lot of good butt years wasted.
The Sundays came along at about the same point in my musical development and presented me with a package that hit a personal bullseye at the time- wistful female vocals, whirring guitars and whimsical lyrics. But just like me and Natalie, The Sundays and I have drifted. It's just too cute for me now, and maybe too polite. The Sundays are inoffensive enough to be used as hold music on government phone lines. And that is possibly too much venom for one blog post. Though not enough for actual music criticism, I guess. Why do I have a problem with inoffensiveness? After all, I don't like misogynist stuff, I cringe at racist Oi music and not everything I prefer these days comes from the land of thunderous volumey doom. I just kind of feel that if no one anywhere has a problem with your art, then that in itself is a problem. Which is a very immature point of view probably, but a seductively simple one.
I should point out that I still own albums by both these artists. I just hardly ever play them any more, though I was far more persistent regarding the Maniacs. However, I think it's really over this time. We're just too different.
First, the Maniacs. Natalie Merchant has a great voice. Robert Buck did some ...interesting things on guitar. And I still love her voice (sorry Robert), but the projects she has put it in strike me as less well judged the older I get. A lot of 10000 Maniacs output is just plain embarassing. Heavy handed moralising with painful rhymes. One review I read recently described them as a great cover band and that's nasty but not entirely unfair. They have good taste in others material ( Iris DeMent, Tom Waits etc), but roughly half of their own stuff is utterly awkward and uncomfortable in that "outraged adolescent poetry" way. On a completely shallow note, all of their videos are hideously dorky as well, though we can perhaps blame the eighties for that. And to get completely personal, Natalie's frequently appalling fashion choices strike me as far too close to all my decisions about dresses in my twenties for me to be able to look without a wince of recognition. Ah! So baggy! Why did I hide my bum for most of my youth? I blame college rock, y'all. A lot of good butt years wasted.
The Sundays came along at about the same point in my musical development and presented me with a package that hit a personal bullseye at the time- wistful female vocals, whirring guitars and whimsical lyrics. But just like me and Natalie, The Sundays and I have drifted. It's just too cute for me now, and maybe too polite. The Sundays are inoffensive enough to be used as hold music on government phone lines. And that is possibly too much venom for one blog post. Though not enough for actual music criticism, I guess. Why do I have a problem with inoffensiveness? After all, I don't like misogynist stuff, I cringe at racist Oi music and not everything I prefer these days comes from the land of thunderous volumey doom. I just kind of feel that if no one anywhere has a problem with your art, then that in itself is a problem. Which is a very immature point of view probably, but a seductively simple one.
I should point out that I still own albums by both these artists. I just hardly ever play them any more, though I was far more persistent regarding the Maniacs. However, I think it's really over this time. We're just too different.