10,000 Maniacs - Cover Songs, Volume 2: 1993
The undisputed star of 10,000 Maniacs was Natalie Merchant, who was the lead singer and wrote the lyrics of all their songs, and most of the music too. She left in 1993 to start a solo career, which was very successful. 10,000 Maniacs found a new female singer and continued without her, but other than one hit, they didn't have much success. My interest in the band ends when Merchant left.
All the songs here are from the last year Merchant was in the band. This album is about the same length as Volume 1, which deals with nine years of the band's career. Perhaps they wanted to go out with a bang, doing lots of covers of their favorite songs. Most of them are classic hits, although there are a few oddball selections. Perhaps the most surprising is "He's 1-A in the Army and He's A-1 in My Heart," which is from 1941, during World War II and have a military theme to the lyrics.
Four of the songs here have been officially released on record, with another three being released only on DVD. The first three are B-sides. "Because the Night" appeared on the band's album "MTV Unplugged." The three songs after that, tracks 6, 7, and 8, appeared on a DVD of the band's MTV show only, and feature David Byrne from the Talking Heads in a supporting role.
The other songs all come from concert bootlegs. Luckily, the band was popular enough by this time for me to be able to find soundboard recordings of all of them.
Although this is the end of covers by 10,000 Maniacs, I like Merchant's voice and her choice of cover songs. So I'll be carrying on with more cover albums dealing with her solo career. There actually are dozens more interesting covers done by 10,000 Maniacs, but I couldn't find recordings of them with soundboard-level quality, or even any recordings at all. But if anyone has more that sound as good as these do, let me know and I'll add them in.
This album is 41 minutes long.
This is a list of the original artists for each song:
01 Everyday Is like Sunday - Morrissey
02 [Don’t Go Back To] Rockville - R.E.M.
03 To Sir with Love - Lulu
04 Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield
05 Because the Night - Patti Smith / Bruce Springsteen
06 Dallas - Jimmy Dale Gilmore
07 Let the Mystery Be - Iris DeMent
08 Jolene - Dolly Parton
09 He's 1-A in the Army and He's A-1 in My Heart - Harry James
10 I Know How to Do It - Dinah Washington
11 Drift Away - John Henry Kurtz / Dobie Grey
12 Band of Gold - Freda Payne
13 The Art of Love - Eartha Kitt
14 Long Black Veil - Lefty Frizzell
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