Every now and again a band comes along that captivates your musical interest for their first few albums...and then that captivation disappears as rapidly as it originally came. Sometimes it's a short-lived career or a shiny new group or even a divergence of your and the band's musical tastes. 10,000 Maniacs falls into this category for me (as does Dire Straits and Eddie Money--though thanks to their popularity I was at least familiar with the music I was no longer interested in)--I enjoyed their first two albums immensely and can honestly say I'm not sure I've heard anything they've done since. That's not a knock of the band--just acknowledgement that time and circumstance aren't always beneficial to lifelong love affairs with bands.
10,000 Maniacs began their career in 1981 in Jamestown, New York, and much to my surprise, they're still recording and touring to this day. The band had the bulk of its success from 1987 through 1993, but once lead singer and lyrics writer Natalie Merchant left to pursue a solo career the band lost most of its commercial appeal. Still, Mary Ramsey took over her duties and the band has had another twenty-seven years of playing music and that beats hell out of selling potatoes for a living. For their career the band has released nine studio albums (with three of them hitting the top forty), five live albums (their MTV Unplugged album is the highest charting of their career), and three compilations. A cover version of the Bruce Springsteen/Patti Smith penned tune "Because the Night" (Smith's version was featured on FNJ LXXXVI) from the same album was the highest charting of their twenty-one single releases, reaching #11. The band's latest release was a live album in 2017, and will celebrate its fortieth anniversary next year.
"What's the Matter Here," released in 1988, was the third single from their first studio album, In My Tribe. The single reached #80 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album hit #37 on the Billboard 200.
"What's the Matter Here" was a natural for a music fan such as myself who has always fancied songs that had a political and or social tint to them. The song notes the dilemma of the protagonist who has heard her neighbors being both physically and verbally abusive toward their child who is herself torn between telling the authorities and respecting what is often a family matter (while I'm not in favor of using a belt to discipline children, there are families that do use corporal punishment for misbehaving and no one is going to jail for it as long as it doesn't result in much more than a red fanny--again not defending it, just saying society and our judicial system tends to see it as each family's choice). One would think it would be hard to write a catchy melody around such a somber topic but the Maniacs managed to do it, and in so doing made the message even stronger. Merchant's voice is a wonder (four of her seven solo albums hit the top twenty), and she musters the compassion and righteous anger that the protagonist feels and that the serious nature of the song calls for. I liked several of the Maniacs songs over the course of the years I followed them, but none touched me quite as much as this one--to steal a phrase, it is truly a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
Lyric Sheet: "I'm tired of the excuses everybody uses, he's their kid I stay out of it/But who gave you the right to do this?..."
Enjoy:
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