10,000 Maniacs – Blind Man’s Zoo
Author: tracysigler | Posted: September 14th, 2007 | | Tags: 000 Maniacs, 10, 1989, alternative, college rock, jangle pop, music, vinyl | 1 Comment »
10,000 Maniacs - Blind Man's Zoo
- Artist: 10,000 Maniacs
- Title: Blind Man’s Zoo
- Year: 1989
- Format: Vinyl 12 in.
- Rating (1-10): 5
- Owner: Mary
- Acquired: 1989?
- Keeper: No
There’s no way I will be fair to this band and record; I apologize for that. For those about to not rock… I salute you. And speaking of not rocking, Lee Gomes at The Wall Street Journal wrote a great article about how the iPod and MP3s are killing the sound of music. The hills are alive with crappy-sounding over-compressed music tweaked to sound better for the “lowest common denominator”, iPods.
With that rant out of the way, let us now whine about 10,000 Maniacs. I don’t know what it is about them. It may be Natalie Merchant’s voice, and probably the overall tone of their music. I’ve always found them annoying, and Blind Man’s Zoo is no exception. Mary got a couple of their records way back and now even she doesn’t want to hear them anymore. Not hatin’, I just can’t take it.
It’s definitely the whole Natalie thing — from the overly precious lyrics to the me-so-sleepy vocal delivery. I hear these guys and I just get tired. Tired and a little angry, too, like in that way where I want to get in a fight when I hear the Steve Miller Band.
I liked the WSJ article. I’ve been hearing complaints about compression for at least 10 years (starting with a guy in SF who masters CDs for a living). Maybe now with iTunes being one of the top music sellers, they’ll start moving toward multiple masters — one for CD and another for mp3.