In the late eighties, just when we thought we were going to be drowned forever in dance pop, 10,000 Maniacs - whose actual lineup consisted of 9,995 fewer maniacs - saved us from such a fate, with lead vocalist Natalie Merchant leading the way. The honesty in her singing was a refreshing antidote to the manufactured MTV-style pop of the time.
10,000 Maniacs had their commercial breakthrough with their 1987 album In My Tribe, produced by the legendary Peter Asher. Ironically, the album's best-known track is obscure today. It was a cover of Cat Stevens' "Peace Train," removed from future pressings of In My Tribe by the band to protest Stevens' endorsement of the fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran against author Salman Rushdie for a novel that had a problem with Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam. Stevens had become a Muslim and taken the name Yusuf Islam.
While Yusuf Islam was railing against Salman Rushdie, 10,000 Maniacs continued their success with their 1989 Asher-produced album Blind Man's Zoo, which featured the sweet, empathetic ballad "Trouble Me," solidifying Ms. Merchant's vocal artistry. 1992's Our Time In Eden featured the joyous pop of "These Are Days" and "Candy Everybody Wants," with our heroine in fine form on both songs. But after a 1993 album of the band's performance on "MTV Unplugged" - which featured Ms. Merchant on a sinewy cover of Patti Smith's and Bruce Springsteen's "Because The Night" - Natalie Merchant left the Maniacs behind for a solo career.
She debuted as a solo performer in 1995 wit h Tigerlily album, featuring the hit songs "Carnival" and "Wonder. She followed that success with 1998's Ophelia and the album's hit single "Kind & Generous."
In the twenty-first century, Natalie Merchant has moved toward smaller labels and has been content with smaller audiences, and her music has gotten more personal. Her 2010 double album Leave Your Sleep was an ambitious folk album about childhood, consisting of songs adapted from poems about the subject from both British and American literature.
Natalie Merchant continues to explore the numerous possibilities in independent folk-rock music, commercialism be damned. That's why so many of us love her.
Fun fact: Natalie Merchant is of Italian descent, and her surname is an anglicization of Mercante; the family name was changed before she was born.
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