I heard Natalie Merchant is a cunt.

I noticed on The Are Days that the comment section has been closed.

I see Natalie has a lot of NDA's with the members of Datalounge

Another closed comment video. What is our favorite 90's songstress hiding? Does she want us to focus on the 'art?'

Maybe the Aileen Wuornos stans got to her...

Yes, because youtube comments always speak the truth....Next, you'll say you heard something on datalounge that you know is true

yes, she is a cunt

I don't know ha

Cannot listen to her talk-singing her stupid songs.

I enjoyed seeing her at the Greek Theater a couple of years back. She comes across a bit aloof, but well, not everybody can be personable. She sounded just like on the radio though.

She was 9,999 of the 10,000 Maniacs

She hit me in the head with a fondue pot.

I've had two experiences with her. She wasn't awful... but if I would have had to guess, I would have assumed she was on the spectrum.

R12, what makes you say that?

"Jealousy" and "Carnival" by Natalie Merchant are both on the August 1995 Gap In-Store Playlist!

I saw her at a concert a few years ago, and she very much did not want to be there, was clearly NOT enjoying herself, and was very rude when someone requested a song. It was strange.

Is she a lesbian?

Wow...this is all too bad. I've never seen her in concert but about 24 years ago I was working in a mall Macy's and her mom came in and she couldn't have been sweeter or more down to earth. She was in town with Natalie for the10K Maniacs concert and Natalie's mom kept telling us we should come out to see 10KM and how great the band was. She was obviously quite proud of her daughter.

She’s a good songwriter and has an unusual, pleasant voice. But she has an irritating stage presence, and seems to perform with reluctance. She had success early in life, and seemed at odds with her band mates in 10kM. At least one band mate was pretty mean about her. When a disinhibited fan sang loudly off key, one of the band commented “Look, It’s Natalie”. Their “unplugged” cd was damned good, particularly their cover of “Because The Night”. I think it may have charted. I always wondered what Patti Smith thought of their version of that song. It was unusual how well they performed together in an acoustic set, and the CD was really well-engineered. She was so young at the Band’s prime, and that much public recognition must be difficult so early in life. I think she’s an environmentalist and lives in a rural area, possibly with her own studio to produce music. Her CD “Tiger Lily” was very successful and I think she produced it herself, or at least kept creative control and possibly intellectual property rights to her songs. She seems very smart and serious, maybe takes her work and herself seriously. I guess that’s admirable. Their hit song “about the weather” was really overplayed. The band, after Merchant left, had a minor hit with a cover of Roxy Music’s “More Than This”, but I don’t think much else after.

10,000 Maniacs played at Palm Springs Pride some years back. I remember thinking that the lead singer sounded remarkably like Natalie Merchant.

Not surprising that members of 10,000 Maniacs would be salty towards Natalie. She WAS the band and without her they disappeared into obscurity.

They're pissed knowing that they could have had much more success if she would have stuck around.

Answer me and take your time, what could be the awful crime she could do at so young an age? If I’m the only witness to your madness, offer me some words to balance out what I see and what I hear.

All these COLD and RUDE things that you do I suppose you do because he belongs to you. And instead of love and the feel of home you’ve given him these CUTS and SORES that don’t heal with time or with age.

And I want to say, what’s the matter here?

A former friend of mine was 10,000 Maniac's road manager when they first started out in Jamestown, NY. He said she was nice, but a little pretentious. How could she not be, though, being the main attraction in a band at such a young age? I believe they stayed in touch, and, when my friend started producing concerts, the band let him produce a few with them.

I heard that she gave the band a very long notice when she decided to go solo, so they would have time to prepare for her departure. I thought that was very gracious of her, considering that many lead singers leave abruptly, leaving the other band members in the lurch.

And, R21, the lyrics to What's the Matter Here are brilliant, aren't they?

What's the Matter Here really is a brilliant, powerful song. I wonder if it was inspired by someone Natalie knew personally.

Well it’s definitely in the top three songs about child abuse along with My Name is Luka and Hell is for Children.

My friend knew her years ago. He said was was much fuglier back then and reeked.

R24 I just saw an interesting interview with Vega who talked about how Luka was written in one sitting and without a single change or correction in the actual journal she wrote the lyrics in

Yet another thread randomly shitting on a female celebrity.

Oh, and it ventures into disparaging her looks.

Oh I'm sorry! Was I supposed to STFU and not say anything?

Is she still relevant in 2020?

She is absolutely not a cunt or anything of the sort. I'm a wind musician and did several acoustic/unplugged concerts with her a few years back when she was touring. She was really down-to-earth, warm, personable and professional. I would love to work with her again.

She played at a conference I was at and could have just phoned it in but was delightful and personable and worked to connect with the audience.

R28 To those of us stuck in 1995, yes. I also have a ritual of playing dialup modem sounds before I log into DL, to make the experience that much more authentic.

R27 A frau discovers Datalounge.

R32 I'm a gay man. Next.

You're insufferable.

I adored her, and I saw her perform numerous times. However she never failed to berate the audiences at least once a concert here in NYC.

However she got better, in Iater years, she'd instead say things like "OK,OK, I need you to stop clapping so I can concentrate" while at the piano in a very charming way, instead of yelling stop or quiet in a disgusted tone.

And you just suddenly decided to bring it up now?

Why?

[quote] Do I need someone here to scold me or do I need someone who'll grab and pull me out of four poster dull torpor pulling downward. For it is such a long time since my better days. I say my prayers nightly this will pass away.

Does this sound like a happy person?

[quote] And, [R21], the lyrics to What's the Matter Here are brilliant, aren't they?

It's one of the greatest examples of what made Natalie Merchant an incredible songstress. She writes her songs like literature, and somehow finds a way to thread them into melody. The entire Our Time In Eden record is replete with examples of this. I really miss this band. I started college in 1993 and the last two records she did with 10,000 Maniacs represent a real moment in time for me.

What happened to her? She was HUGE in the 90s and then just kind of disappeared. Did she intentionally lower her profile? I get the feeling the tremendous fame she experienced kind of caught her by surprise - she didn't expect to get as big as she did.

[quote]What happened to her? She was HUGE in the 90s and then just kind of disappeared. Did she intentionally lower her profile? I get the feeling the tremendous fame she experienced kind of caught her by surprise - she didn't expect to get as big as she did.

What happened to her?

What happened to Sarah McLachlan? Paula Cole? Jewel?

Music changed and moved away from them. They all still continued to produce albums but weren't getting radio play.

This thread reminded me of how much I loved her song, "I May Know the Word."

[quote]I started college in 1993 and the last two records she did with 10,000 Maniacs represent a real moment in time for me.

I'm around your age and it's the same with me. 10,000 Maniacs and Natalie Merchant's songs instantly transport me back to that time.

Most comments are glowing on music videos, weird how she shuts that down.

What an awful thread title. In My Tribe is 10,000 Maniacs best album. Like the Weather and Don’t Talk are masterful. But every song resonates 30 years later. Then again, this came out my senior year in high school / freshman year of college.

Natalie. Her big beautiful mouth. Crazy little circle dance. Keeping Michael Stipe from being a gold star gay. Her song about River on Tigerlily. She’s a treasure.

[quote] What an awful thread title

Just you wait until Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies

She fucked Michael Stipe?

[quote] He said she was nice, but a little pretentious. How could she not be, though, being the main attraction in a band at such a young age?

Gwen Stefani was also really young and was pushed far forward in No Doubt. I’ve never heard of GS being pretentious.

[quote] Wow...this is all too bad. I've never seen her in concert but about 24 years ago I was working in a mall Macy's and her mom came in and she couldn't have been sweeter or more down to earth. She was in town with Natalie for the10K Maniacs concert and Natalie's mom kept telling us we should come out to see 10KM and how great the band was. She was obviously quite proud of her daughter.

24 years ago Natalie had been out of the band for three years and had released a solo album and was readying a second one. So your story holds no water.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

Because the Night was a beautiful cover and 10,000 Maniacs' highest-charting song. It hit #11 in 1993.

I saw 10,000 maniacs around 1986 in a small club in Columbus, Ohio.

Eldergays with a bit of taste all prefer Suzanne Vega.

Morrissey hated her cover of "Every Day Is Like Sunday"

I was in a Midwestern high school in '93, during 10,000 Maniacs' peak/swan song, and every high school girl I knew idolized Natalie Merchant, Kristen Hersh, Tanya Donnelly, Courtney Love, Harriet Wheeler, etc.

It was all about having depth and being respected for it, and the straight guys who didn't get with the program didn't get any.

But there was a weird reversal soon after, and hoochie became the desirable template. I don't understand it.

Met her once, she was nice...I asked for an autograph and she has the smallest, cutest autograph I've ever scene.

The nastiness of DL is getting very sad. Merchant was wonderful. Sensitive, but grown. So talented. Grad School pretty. Ethereal. A bit pretentious for sure. Very unique. Smart to tune out the comments on Youtube. Here. There. And elsewhere.

Still raw and pure. Awkward. Amazing.

[quote]I’ve never heard of GS being pretentious.

Are you fucking kidding? Gwen Stefani tried to rebrand herself as a R&B chanteuse in the early 2000s. Is this supposed to be ironic?

I met her recently and she was lovely.

R40 Which one was Jewel again, the homeless one that lived in her car?

[quote] The nastiness of DL is getting very sad.

DL has always been cunty. Always. Let's not go to a vegan restaurant and complain there's no filet mignon, folks.

Jewel is the one with the janky teeth and just the one song.

Jewel had more than one popular song -- like 4 or 5. And a book of poetry.

I don't anything about her, but I do enjoy her music.

For the poster upstream who might not realize Patti Smith didn't write "Because the Night." Smith had the hit with it, but Springsteen wrote it. You might have known that?

Love the song "Carnival." (No, I am not Aileen Wuornos.) I've probably listened to "Carnival" hundreds of times.

Carnival is the best of her solo songs.

I think she and the Maniacs were a great balance. When she went off on her own, she had no one around to balance some of her bad ideas, and she became an unbearable harridan.

I want to start a band called Unbearable Harridan.

I read an interview with her...she came off as pretentious and a bit of a fame whore.

She's deservedly in the "where are they now" files

Im in the opposite camp feeling like her songs were much better after she left 10,000 Maniacs. I personally like quite a number of songs more than Canrival. I absolutely love Beloved Wife.

I saw her open for REM probably around 1995 when her first solo album came out. It was a huge outdoor venue and probably not the best place to see her. Just a very mellow set that didn’t energize the crowd. And since she’d just gone solo she didn’t do any 10,000 Maniacs stuff. Didn’t help that it was Austin in the middle of summer and unbearably hot. Unfortunately the experience kind of killed my interest in her solo stuff. I don’t think I listened to any of her albums after Tigerlily.

Well, Natalie's cunt think YOU'RE a cunt.

I remember reading this interview when it came out, and other articles that gave the impression that she was rather pretentious and dour. Then again, you could get the same impression from her music. Some of her stuff is very good, but she always had that schoolmarm vibe going on.

R21 who knew? Even reading the lyrics to a 10, 000 Maniacs song is horrible.

if she has songwriter credit and invested wisely she doesn't have to another damn thing. she'd be a sport if she'd tour with maniacs and new lead singer so the former band could get a good payday.....but, who knows what's up between them.

I hear "Wonder" on the radio every time I go shopping for groceries. It must be a #1 grocery store hit -- one of the all time greats.

I loved her Ophelia album. N'dea Davenoport's vocals on, "Break Your Heart," are a revelation!

The Wonder video is hilarious. She has a bunch of young retards dancing around. It's so special!

She sounds insufferable as described in the article posted at R74. Completely ungrateful to be a "pop" star. I wonder how age has affected her, if she feels more grateful now.

Yoko Ono said that C (major, I think) is her favorite key to write songs in because people relate to it.

Bruce Springsteen says he wishes he had written "You've Got a Friend." (This is my memory from a VH1 special on great songs; Carole King wrote the song.) I always thought of "You've Got a Friend" as corny. But Bruce said that the song touches so many people and I started thinking of the song differently.

Natalie Merchant and Jennifer Turner talk about Tigerlily. Jennifer played guitar on Carnival.

Natalie needs to write and release a song about coronavirus.

I just watched the tiny desk concert. I had forgotten how much I love her voice. She sounds unlike any other. And, damn, her accordion player is hot as fuck.

I like her voice too but it also sounds lazy.

Even if she is a cunt, her voice is absolutely beautiful and moving in that Tiny Desk concert. Like a bell.

I once saw a straight amateur gangbang porn that had Natalie's "Tigerlily" album playing as background music. They all finished on her face and tits to "Jealousy." It was magical.

I think that lazy and behind and in front of the beat is kind of her style. A little under the note too. She's not a great enough vocalist to call it intentional. When Joni Mitchell sang on the Canadian collective for famine relief, Tears are Not Enough, there was a moment in the making of video when someone off camera says to her - 'Try that again, you were a little under.' Joni responds - that's my style man. And it is, because Joni can sing with perfect intonation anytime she wants too.

Merchant is someone difficult to be effusive over, but she is undoubtedly great and important and immensely unique and talented. Like many on this thread, I hear her voice and I am instantly reminded of another time in my life AND also how great she is.

If you think that Merchant had a lazy or affected way of singing... here's a reminder of why Jewel had only a brief phase of immense popularity. She has quite a beautiful voice of piercing range and resonance and sensitivity. (Howard Stern loves her) but her affectations are unbearable. She sings like a baby talking. Ugh. She breaks up words and sounds to suit her vocal noises. Learn vowels and consonants. Harmonics. Or just try not to fuck it up with your feelings. Get in the backseat Jewel.

Not to mention that Jewel is insufferable as a human being.

It’s interesting, Jewel is actually a poet, but I find Natalie’s lyrics more poetic than Jewel’s.

Suzanne Somers is also a poet.

And Suzanne Somers is also an insufferable human being!

Does Natalie still spin around in circles at her concerts?

And hopefully barefoot.

Suzanne Somers has done more for humankind than Jewel. But there are many threads already dedicated to the humanitarian and scientific achievements of Suzanne Somers. Let's leave this thread for the last female folk singers. Suzanne needs no defenders R91. She is so much more than a poet.

Being a Nobel Laureate, Somers is somewhat more accomplished than little Alaskan Jewel. Foolish Games vs curing cancer? Ms. Somers wins R91. As a singer, Broadway, TV & Movie Star, entertainer and ageless Beauty? Bijoux strums in a coffee house while Suzanne Somers conquered the world!!

I heard Tracy Chapman hates all of these bitches!!

This one got me through some terrible times. Deaths of two loved ones and an unfathomably awful end to a nine-year relationship. She is brilliant. And I love her use of Pachelbel's Canon during the bridge into the chorus (2:40 minute mark).

Break You Heart is my favorite. So sad and beautiful at the same time. You don't hear music like this anymore in this age of autotuned pole dancers passing as singers.

Natalie is no joke R96. She's not an everyday mood, but people shouldn't jamb her up with Paula Cole Sarah Mclachlan or Jewel. Not the same level of talent.

Kelly Clarkson sang the heck out of Tracy Chapman R95.

I miss those 90s gals.

Sure, Poo, sure.

R98 Kelly Clarkson on that song kind of reminds me of Susan Tedeschi.

I was the BIGGEST Merchant fan. I still love her. Saw her and the maniacs so many times, I lost count. I often forget how much I love her voice until I hear it again. Just listened to the Tiny Desk concert and she's still great and there must be something about her because like the other posters on this thread, I hear her and am instantly back in time to 1993. The first song I ever heard by her was "Trouble Me." It was so great, I pulled over in a parking lot instead of continuing driving because I wanted to know who it was and waited for the DJ to say it.

I really loved the Maniac's version of Peace Train, but after Cat Stevens called for the death of Salman Rushdie, she ordered it removed from future versions of In My Tribe and vowed never to sing it in public again.

God, the young lesbian me, who wrote poetry and lived more in my head than my body spent hours listening to Natalie. For whatever reason, every October I get in the mood to listen to her. I think my favorite song of hers is "The Wall" off of Blind Man's Zoo.

R102, I loved your comment.

It’s funny because yesterday I was watching this Netflix series called “Flowers” which is darkly comical and I can’t believe no one here is watching it. But anyway, there’s a character who is a somewhat closeted lesbian who writes music and poetry and she made me think of Natalie Merchant (a bit of Emily Dickinson, too).

R102 Do you start listening to her in October because of the song River? When I lived in L.A. every year on Halloween I would go to the Viper Room and bring flowers and hangout listening to her song about him.

Natalie Merchcunt

I love Natalie too I saw 10,000 Maniacs in NYC in 1988 and Tracy Chapman was the opening act. Tracy was just about to release her first album and was unknown at the time.

I once saw Natalie in the chicken coop at the Duchess County Farm festival. I know she lives somewhere in the Hudson Valley but I literally couldn’t believe that of all places in the world I see a celebrity looking up different types of chickens and eggs.

Natalie seems to feel things so deeply. She so wants the world to be a better place from a social justice perspective that it makes it hard for her to walk this earth. I love her but it can’t be easy to be her.

I loved Sarah McClachlan in the early 90's but then she became Frau bait.

Michael Stipe tried to beard with her (or "pass her off as his girlfriend," as it was known then), but she wasn't having any of it. "Michael and I NEVER dated," she told a JANE magazine interviewer.

She lives in Troy, NY now — think she lived in Woodstock for years.

How much cock has Natalie had and whose?

Bless your heart, R48. I said "about 24 years ago." At the time I had a full time job, worked part time at Macy's, and was working on my MA You'll forgive me if I wasn't sitting cross legged on the floor in front of my CD collection, rigorously examining the liner notes, anxiously peering into the mailbox awaiting my copy of SPIN, and telling anyone who would listen I was into bands before they were cool. Not sure why you think I would make up a story about Natalie Merchant's mother. 🤔 Good luck with your reading comprehension.

[quote]For the poster upstream who might not realize Patti Smith didn't write "Because the Night." Smith had the hit with it, but Springsteen wrote it. You might have known that?

R65, do you realize that your comment is incorrect? Patti Smith DID write, "Because the Night." She wrote it with Springsteen.

Back in the late 90's she sure was. She threw tantrum at a show at Fairfield University because students at the back of the arena were talking and walking around during the show.

She's actually Natalie Mercante -- her grandfather anglicized their Sicilian surname.

I was 11 when MTV played the fuck out of this video.

I was an instant fan of her dancing/twirling. She really gave Stevie Nicks a run for her money early on.

Maybe it’s the name Natalie, Portman and Wood had rather aloof qualities as well.

Jewel only lasted so long because big jugs trumps jacked up teeth.

And don't even get me started on that 911 version of her song HANDS. it was basically a re-release of her songs with audio clips from the news.

I remember R16 ! that must have been around 1986/87.

I loved her as that quirky little pixie. She because a wet blanket after going solo..

This video for a gorgeous song looks piss-poor by today's CGI standards, but it really captures how beautiful and chic Natalie was at her peak.

Every artsy teenage girl wanted to be her, and many alterna-boys were smitten.

She's so beautiful in that video, r120. That's when my crush started.

America Ferrera should play her in a biopic

^ 👍

I saw 10k M open for They Might Be Giants around 89/90 and have loved her and her voice ever since. 90’s era Natalie also strongly resembles my mom when I was a little boy, so watching her older videos has an additional layer of emotion for me. Our Time In Eden indeed.

[quote]America Ferrera should play her in a biopic

Talk about a cunt!

[quote]America Ferrera should play her in a biopic

Talk about a cunt!

Bump.

Who the hell is that?

Natalie may have a delightful personality

but she has not aged particularly well

She looks like someone's GamGam

She aged gracefully. Stop projecting your own insecurities on her you withered old crone.

I’ve heard OP is a mincing prisspot.

My cousin’s friend who is a stylist to ALL the big names in deaf rap said that Natalie was nervous and paranoid because Rosie O’Donnell was stalking her by phone. None of the artists heard her phone ringing - just saw her mouthing, “My vagina is none of your beeswax”. At the time, phones were tiny, so a few rappers thought she was talking to them.

After watching the video at R116, I'd like to know who thought Like The Weather needed to heavily feature chickens.

I kicked her in the cunt bone for sort of stealing my schtick.

Used to see her snd Stipe around Athens (GA) all the time circa 1990-1991. Once with a very confused looking Kurt Cobain.

[quote]She aged gracefully. Stop projecting your own insecurities on her you withered old crone.

Gracefully for an old crone with long, coarse gray hair...

I know someone who hung out with her back in the day. She was a messy ,malodorous fug. To her great credit she changed her look and made something of herself.

I would forgive her of all sorts of things because of that gorgeous voice. If I could do a thing half so well as she does with her voice, I don't think I would ever stop.

She seems to have gone her own path and moved mostly out of the spotlight, chosen a way that she can do a musical project, slide back into the action for a while, on her own terms, then retreat again from the spotlight. Maybe she can be prickly, maybe she likes things her particular way, maybe she was/is difficult, but goddamn, what a beautiful voice that can be anything, effortlessly it always seems.

The quieter are always my favorite because they show off her voice.