Friday 17 May 2013

Not Hamlet's Wife: 15 Years To Natalie Merchant's "Ophelia"

I first heard Natalie Merchant's amazing voice on the TV, when she and her former band 10000 Maniacs covered Patti Smith's song "Because The Night" on MTV Unplugged. I haven't heard a lot of her music since that early 90's, but when I put her second solo album named Ophelia, which was released 15 years ago on 19 of March, 1998, I fell in love with her music again. Ophelia was produced by the British composer Gavin Bryars and it is rich in instrumental arrangements and co operations with other artist such as Karen And Don Peris from The Innocence Mission and N'dea Davenport from the Brand New Heavies. This is not a concept album, as many think, but Natalie Merchant tries to show the female standpoint, who looks at the social structure and finds out some of the opportunities are closed. In a certain sense, it holds a Feminist point of view and was quit rare in that time. Here are five songs from this album, hoping you'd like i

Album Rating: 7/10

Kind And Generous
Ophelia
King Of May
Break Your Heart (With N'dea Davenport of Brand New Heavies)
The Living

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