I recall that in Rikki Lee's first appearance on national TV (Saturday Night Live) supporting the first album, she refused to sing the big hit and did 'Coolsville' instead (probably the least accessible cut on the whole album.) I don't know exactly what this says about her need to differentiate her art from that of certain other long-haired blonde pop singers, but clearly she chose to present herself in this huge first exposure with a sparse, arty, bohemian, attitude rife example rather than the poppy, full-production 'Chuck E's in Love'
I love this whole album - 'Company', 'Night Train', Youngbloods' 'Last Chance Texaco'...great stuff. I think 'Company' belongs in the front rank of American songbook classics. As for Ms. Merchant I will break a cardinal rule (If you can't say something nice...') to say I can't stand her! I could never at all fathom why 10,000 Maniacs ever got airplay on MTV or on rock-format stations! It was never even close to the genre. She has what are to me really annoying vocal mannerisms which she seems to hope will stand in for style, a limited range, a playbook of identical- sounding mid-tempo navel-gazers, and some reputation for falling down in personal appearances. She was embarrassingly bad in the Concert for New York. According to the paper she made her recent Boston audience nervous by playing mostly off her just-released album (see above), mostly avoiding the familiar, and then closed the concert by starting and quickly aborting several songs after a few bars, which seemed to even upset the band. She's probably a very nice person, tho! ChuckE
