10,000 Maniacs - "Trouble Me"

(Debuted June 17, 1989, Peaked #44, 12 Weeks on the chart)

By 1989, I had stopped listening to Top 40 radio for the most part. That summer I was 16 and about to start my senior year of high school, and found the constant dance beat and the repetition of the same 15-20 songs to be too grating. So, I played around with my radio dial and watched shows like 120 Minutes and Post Modern when I watched MTV. As a result, there are several songs from that era of my life that are very familiar to me that weren't Top 40 hits, including this one from 10,000 Maniacs.

I featured another song by 10,000 Maniacs in this blog back in July, but "Trouble Me" was a little different from their previous hit because it wasn't trying to expose some type of social problem. Instead, Natalie Merchant's vocal was saying, "talk to me." Whether the subject is good or bad, there's nothing that can't be discussed. It's a piece of advice that I should have listened to a little more closely, since there are people from that time who are no longer around that I would love to get the chance to speak with today.

10,000 Maniacs - "What's the Matter Here?"

(Debuted September 3, 1988, Peaked #80, 8 Weeks on the Chart)

At the time "What's the Matter Here?" was unleashed on college radio (where it was really popular) and on MTV, 10,000 Maniacs was still a virtually unknown band from Upstate New York. However, their record company was priming them for a larger-scale audience, bringing in Peter Asher to produce their 1987 LP In My Tribe. The album had four singles, with two reaching the Hot 100.

In an era where "message" songs managed to get some press and publicity, it was noted that "What's the Matter Here?" was tackling the subject of child abuse. That's never a happy subject, and the band did performed in a straightforward manner, without any dramatics or hysteria. However, what was often overlooked in the lyrics is that the narrator is struggling with whether to say anything about it ("But I don't dare say..."), which gives the song some of its realism, since few really want to be seen as sticking their nose in other people's business.

Written by band members Natalie Merchant and Rob Buck, "What's the Matter Here" stalled at #80. Perhaps it wasn't time for the band yet in the same era as George Michael and Whitney Houston...perhaps it was too soon after Suzanne Vega actually had a hit -- no pun intended -- with the subject the previous year in her song "Luka." It would be more than five years before 10,000 Maniacs would eventually reach the Top 40.