Track Listing

1. What's The Matter Here
2. Hey Jack Kerouac
3. Like The Weather
4. Cherry Tree
5. Painted Desert
6. Don't Talk
7. Peace Train
8. Gun Shy
9. My Sister Rose
10. Campfire Song
11. City Of Angels
12. Verdi Cries

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4765 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
In My Tribe was 10,000 Maniacs' second (and best) album and the record that made the band collegiate favourites and singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant a star. Producer Peter Asher's rich balance of acoustic and electric instruments gave muscle to the group's folk-rock. "Hey Jack Kerouac" found Merchant musing on the literary beats of the 1950s but the song's musical hook was the rich bed of rhythm guitars laid atop the solid drums. "Don't Talk" offered a similarly propulsive rock sound, with lyrics that advised troubled lovers to keep it to themselves. REM singer Michael Stipe offered hipster credibility by guesting on "A Campfire Song", while a cover of Cat Stevens's "Peace Train" offered listeners a familiar port of entry. However, when Muslim convert Stevens announced his support of Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini's call for the execution of Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie, the band rereleased the album without "Peace Train". --John Milward

CD Description
Natalie Merchant is one of those writers with an uncanny ability to portray the minutiae of life with pinpoint accuracyand detached humour. The songs on In My Tribe cover the difficulty of getting up in the morning ('Like The Weather'), her sister's wedding ('My Sister Rose') and childhood holidays ('Verdi Cries'), as well as relationships, drinking, corporal punishment and soldiering. Merchant writes free-flowing prose songs and performs them impeccably, ably assisted by the other Maniacs and the production of Peter Asher. All slightly off-the-wall, but none the worse for that.

Customer Reviews

' A Thin Slice Of Heaven '
The summer of 1988 was one of the greatest times of my life. I was working in a Summer Camp in the United States, learning about life and visiting places I had always dreamed of.

It was a fellow camp counsellor, who I shared accomodation with, that played 'In My Tribe' one evening, and it altered the way I percieved music. Being a '80s teenager brought up on a diet of New Wave and New Romantics, listening to this album showed me that music could be more than style over substance.

From it's opening bar of the first track 'What's the matter here?' to 'Verdi cries' the album elevates you heart, cleansess your mind and touches your soul like no other I have experienced.

Since that glorious day, it has often puzzled me that it still remains an underworld masterpiece, and it is this lack of recognition of one of the true 'Classic Albums' of the eighties or any decade that had led me to this article.

I urge anyone to become a member of 'The Tribe', I am and always will be.

10,000 Maniacs at their best
I will freely admit to being a huge fan of Natalie Merchant and the work she did with 10,000 Maniacs. However that respect for the artist had to begin somewhere and about a decade and a half ago it started when my older brother, knowing I worshipped R.E.M. (and with a mind to Micael Stipe's short cameo on A Campfire Song), loaned me a vinyl copy of In My Tribe to listen to and I fell in love.

Starting with the triple-whammy of "What's the Matter Here" (the song that turned the aforementioned older brother onto this album), "Hey, Jack Kerouac", and "Like the Weather" the album quickly establishes itself as a pop-rock masterclass. Its never going to be a favourite of political right wingers or people that resent a good lecture about the iniquities of society but the album is served well by these three definitive Maniac moments and the witty, wordy, and pleasant-despite-the-negatives world it presents. Its strange hearing the 20-ish year old Natalie Merchant's voice compared to the throatier and more mature singer of recent years but even at this stage her voice was gorgeous.

"The Painted Desert" is (in my often humble opinion) the most under-rated song in Merchant's catalogue. A painfully honest open letter from a woman to the man she thought would be waiting for her to join him after he left for a trip, Merchant does a great job of making sure that everyone but the author of the letter understands what is really going on. This leads into "Don't Talk", another iconic Maniac song in the "social conscience" vein established throughout the album with a driving rhythm carrying it forward excellently.

Its safe to say that the majority of the album is top-notch, a couple of tracks are merely good but still of better quality than many songs out there, but the final track on In My Tribe is simply a revelation.

Titled "Verdi Cries" it is a tale of sand-drawings, stolen pastry, loud classical music and quiet pianos. While the late Robert Buck's guitar work and Dennis Drew's keyboard skills are essential to the 10,000 Maniac sound "Verdi Cries" highlights that even as early as 1987 it was Merchant's show. This song is a one piano, one voice, small string section masterpiece and stands as, to my mind, the most perfect song ever written.

Their finest hour...
'In My Tribe' is an absolute masterpiece. It's the folkiest of the 10,000 Maniacs' works, which is great, as this effectively means that we're offered a pretty twanging, tinkling backdrop, over which Natalie Merchant's voice is free to swoop about like an impressive bird in an uncluttered sky. Or something.

Anyway, out of all their albums and Natalie's own solo stuff, her voice is never clearer, and her vocal melodies never so effective as 'In My Tribe'. From the meloncholic pop of 'About The Weather' to the elegant rage of songs about child abuse ('What's the matter here?'), alcoholism ('Don't Talk') and the military ('Gun Shy'), it's a gorgeous, powerful album that only flags on the somewhat inadvised 'My Sister Rose'.

As it's so-stripped down it's probably not quite as accessible as the poppy 'Blind Man's Zoo', but ultimately 'In My Tribe' is the greatest thing Natalie Merchant or the 10,000 Maniacs ever did. It's great, and if you're interested enough to read a review of it then you won't regret buying it.