In My Tribe, released in 1987, is the third studio album by American Alternative Rock band 10,000 Maniacs. Their second record on Elektra Records and their first without co-founder John Lombardo, who previously served as frontwoman Natalie Merchant's songwriting partner on Secrets of the I Ching and The Wishing Chair, the album served as the band's Breakthrough Hit, catapulting them into mainstream stardom for the brief period of time between the rise of alternative rock that year and the start of the grunge boom in 1991, selling over two million copies in the U.S. by 1998. It remains tied with Our Time in Eden as the band's most popular studio album, their best-selling album overall being their MTV Unplugged live album.
With Lombardo's departure the previous year, Merchant opted to increase her level of collaboration with the other band members, particularly guitarist Rob Buck, resulting in a poppier sound compared to the band's previous two albums while still having a distinctively alternative edge to its brand of Jangle Pop, most significantly still continuing the socially conscious lyrics that Merchant had already become known for. The album was produced by former Peter and Gordon member Peter Asher, best known for producing James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, which also added to the folk-rock sound updated for the '80s.
The record was a commercial success for the band, peaking at No. 37 on the Billboard 200, remaining on the charts for 77 weeks, and going gold in the United States within just a year of its release and platinum just a year later; in 1998, the album was eventually certified double-platinum.
In My Tribe was supported by four singles: "Don't Talk", "Peace Train", "Like the Weather", and "What's the Matter Here?", all of which remain favorites on adult alternative stations to this day.
Tracklist:
Side One- "What's the Matter Here?" (4:51)
- "Hey Jack Kerouac" (3:26)
- "Like the Weather" (3:56)
- "Cherry Tree" (3:13)
- "The Painted Desert" (3:39)
- "Don't Talk" (5:04)
Side Two
- "Peace Train"note (3:26)
- "Gun Shy" (4:11)
- "My Sister Rose" (3:12)
- "A Campfire Song" (3:15)
- "City of Angels" (4:17)
- "Verdi Cries" (4:27)
I don't dare trope:
- Abusive Parents: The subject of "What's The Matter Here?", although since all the singer ever sees is a parent threatening to hit a kid, and she never bothers to find out what's actually going on, the song is also a
Broken Aesop. - The Alcoholic:
- "Hey Jack Kerouac" places considerable focus on the titular writer's infamous alcoholism, which eventually lead to his death in 1969 at the age of just 47.
- The addressee of "Don't Talk" is also this, but the singer seems to be torn between fascination and disgust, making the drinker also a bit of a Manipulative Bastard.
- Alternate Album Cover: The CD, LP, and cassette releases each feature different cover artwork, each taken from a different picture in a photoshoot of children practicing archery (the MiniDisc release simply uses a cropped version of the CD cover). The album was also reissued as part of parent label Warner Bros.' "Original Album Series" budget-priced box sets, with the CD cover used despite being issued in a cardboard LP replica sleeve. They were all designed by John Kosh, best known for designing covers for The Beatles, The Who and the Eagles, simply credited as usual as "Kosh."
- Breather Episode: "My Sister Rose", an upbeat song about the narrator attending her sister's wedding, without any Lyrical Dissonance.
- Cover Version: "Peace Train", originally by Cat Stevens. The song was removed from reissues of the album from 1989 onwards in protest of comments Stevens (by then a Muslim convert under the name Yusuf Islam) made that year in interviews that seemed to support the Iranian government's death order against British Indian author Salman Rushdie, whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses was accused of anti-Islam blasphemy. This only applied to American CD, cassette, and MiniDisc pressings, as the cover remained on international editions of the album and domestic vinyl editions, likely because at this point major labels were phasing out vinyl releases anyway (at least in North America), so the label apparently just let the vinyl version go out of print. That version also later resurfaced on the band's 2004 Campfire Songs best-of compilation.
- Dead Artists Are Better: This attitude is criticized on "Hey Jack Kerouac", specifically in regards to the tendency for people to deify artists who died young without thinking of the people they left behind.
- Echoing Acoustics: Done subtly throughout the album (particularly noticeable with Merchant's vocals, but it can also be heard on the instruments as well), acting as both a lingering element of the band's initial Post-Punk influences and a means of taking advantage of the clearer sound offered by the digital recording equipment used on this album.
- Green Aesop: The general theme of "Campfire Song", which protests the destruction of nature for monetary gain.
- Hypocrite: The narrator of "What's the Matter Here" admonishes her peers for refusing to act out against apparent child abuse happening in the neighborhood, only to admit that she herself chooses to remain silent as well despite her objections.
- Lonely Piano Piece: Done almost literally with the closing track, "Verdi Cries", a quiet, primarily piano-driven track with themes of loneliness.
- Lyrical Dissonance: As with previous albums, this is a prominent element here. Among other notable examples, "What's the Matter Here?" and "Like The Weather" are upbeat-sounding songs about child abuse and depression, respectively.
- Never Learned to Read: The narrator of "Cherry Tree":All those lines and circles, to me, a mystery
Eve pull down the apple and give a taste to me
If she could it would be wonderful, but my pride is in the way
I cannot read to save my life, I'm so ashamed to say - New Sound Album: In the wake of John Lombardo's departure, the album features a more distinct Jangle Pop sound courtesy of guitarist Robert Buck and more overtly political lyrics from Natalie Merchant. The album also marks the band's shift to digital recording and mixing, with this album taking advantage of the greater clarity by indulging in more symphonic acoustics.
- Protest Song: Much of the songs on the album are these; hell, the album even opens with one, with "What's the Matter Here?" addressing the topic of child abuse and haranguing those who enable it through inaction and rationalization.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: "Like the Weather":Do I need someone here to scold me?
Or do I need someone who'll come and grab me out of this
Four poster, dull torpor pulling downward? - Rhyming Title: "Hey Jack Kerouac".
- Shout-Out: "Hey Jack Kerouac" namedrops Jack Kerouac (natch), William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg of The Beat Generation, a group of eleven massively influential writers who achieved fame and infamy in The '50s for their transgressive and incredibly postmodern literary output.
- Special Guest: Michael Stipe provides backup vocals during the bridge of "A Campfire Song". Stipe and Natalie Merchant were romantically affiliated at the time, and this relationship influenced Stipe's own shift to more socially-conscious lyricism in the second half of the 1980's.
- Take That!: "Hey Jack Kerouac" mocks those who deify artists simply because they died young, without stopping to think of the people they left behind.
