Songoftheday 5/11/21 - For your selflessness my admiration for everything you've done, you know I'm bound I'm bound to thank you for it...
"Kind and Generous" - Natalie Merchant
from the album Ophelia (1998)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #18 (one week)
Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 18
Today's song of the day comes from singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant, whose first solo album after leaving the alternative rock group 10,000 Maniacs, Tigerlily, had spun off a trio of hits in 1995 and 1996 with "Jealousy", "Wonder", and the top ten single "Carnival". In 1998, Merchant returned with her second offering, Ophelia. The lead song promoted to radio from the record would be the serene folk-ish rock gem "Kind & Generous". Written and produced by the artist, the track merely gives gratitude to another person (unknown in their relationship to the singer) for their magnamity both in the spiritual and in the physical aspects. The title is in the verses, and it takes a good singer to pull of "na na na na na"'s instead of the chorus. It's not a complicated piece, but it doesn't have to be, and Natalie's relaxed yet striking vocals really do carry this. The music video has Natalie as the head of a circus I would love to travel with...
Since "Kind and Generous" wasn't released as a physical retail single in America, it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However, the song got enough radio love to reach the top-20 on the airplay component of the tally in July of 1998. The song spent two weeks at #3 on Billboard's older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio chart, while rising to #32 on their Alternative Rock format list. Internationally, the single reached #19 in Canada. The Ophelia album, released in May of that year, definitely benefited from the lack of a single in some way, scored Merchant her sole top ten album at #8, though it begs to say that Tigerlily, which had three singles released commercially, sold over five million copies, as opposed to Ophelia's one million.
The second "single" from the set was "Break Your Heart", which delves into deeper issues, and featured Brand New Heavies singer N'Dea Davenport. The song missed the American pop chart, but rose to #24 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 format list, while going to #76 in Canada and landing only her second solo hit in the UK at #91. A third release, the quietly beautiful "Life Is Sweet", was able to peak at #12 at the Adult Top-40 format.
After a live album that went into the top half of the Billboard 200 sales tally, Merchant returned in 2001 with her third solo effort for Elektra, Motherland. A brighter, jazzier musical departure from her previous work, the album reached #30, while first single "Just Can't Last" climbed to #30 on the Adult Top-40 chart. It would be her final studio release with the label.
Moving to the esoteric Nonesuch Records imprint after a completely self-made record in The House Carpenter's Daughter, Natalie came back in 2010 with the double-disc Leave Your Sleep, which did pretty respectable at #17 (with a companion distillation also reaching #103) on the Billboard 200. From it the single "Topsy-Turvy World" was her most recent radio hit, reaching #26 on the Triple-A Rock (Adult Album Alternative) format chart. Her most recent charting album of new material came in 2014 with a self-titled release, which went to #20, though a re-recording of her Tigerlily songs in 2015 made it to #96. In 2017, Natatlie released Butterfly, her latest studio set.
(8/10)
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
And lastly, on the VH1 Live show in 2005...
Up tomorrow: Oregonian rockers purchase reincarnation, perhaps.
Comments