Music Arcades: Natalie Merchant: Tigerlily

I can't remember what prompted me to buy this… I hadn't been a big fan of 10,000 Maniacs when Natalie Merchant was one of them, though this led me back to discover what I'd missed the first time round.

It's a very strong singer-songwriter album, attractively and sometimes stylishly produced, with a good balance of upbeat and downbeat songs.

I'm not sure if that's what now leads me to find it a bit too polished and 'professional' — by comparison with the spikey spirit of early 10,000 Maniacs — or whether it's the baggage that the album has for me that diminishes my enjoyment. Because I played it to M, and she quickly became a big Natalie Merchant fan, often singing lines from the songs to me (Seven Years in particular — horrifying now). At the last minute, having driven back to New York from Boston that afternoon, we got tickets in the very back row of the Neil Simon Theatre to see the performance that was recorded for her live album. Typically, I was selfishly hoping we'd fail to get tickets, so we could go and see Sonic Youth across town instead.

…

OK, now I've given it a second listen on the hi-fi instead of the computer, and kind of fallen in love with it again. Three of my favourite tracks remind me of others. Wonder expresses the same kind of 'omnipotent' culture of narcissism as R.E.M. did with World Leader Pretend (and Michael Stipe was/is close friends with Natalie M). River seems to cover the same ground for River Phoenix's premature death that Neil Young did for Kurt Cobain's the year before on Sleeps with Angels. And finally Cowboy Romance (beautiful fiddle playing) reminds me not of a song, but of Pam Houston's short stories in Cowboys Are My Weakness. Not that I'm accusing Natalie Merchant of being derivative, or would necessarily care if she was being — I'm just recording the associations that spring to mind.