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Merge Records’ Five Most Important Releases
From Superchunk to the Billboard-topping Arcade Fire
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Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs is now the #1 album in the country. That’s not really a surprise to anyone (except maybe Eminem), but it’s worth repeating: The Suburbs is the #1 album in the country with 156,000 albums sold. Whether it’s because the album is being sold for $3.99 on Amazon or the two shows at Madison Square Garden or the Terry Gilliam webcam (which was seen by over a million people) or just because the Arcade Fire are really, really good, this is a proud day for indie music.
The band’s label, Merge Records, deserves props, too. Few other labels would have taken a chance on a seven-piece band from Canada who write songs called “Une année sans lumière.” But a chance they took, and it has paid off with three critically, and now commercially, acclaimed albums.
Merge has a long history (21 years and counting!) of releasing quality albums, and below are their five most important.
#5. Foolish by Superchunk (1994)
Based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Merge was founded in 1989 by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughhan, two of the four members of Superchunk, who went by just Chunk then. One of the label’s initial releases was the band’s first 7-inch single. For the next three years, Merge stayed with vinyl and Superchunk released their albums through Matador Records—until Matador joined forces with major label Atlantic. From then on, Superchunk decided to release albums through their own label (a smart choice, in retrospect), beginning with 1992′s singles collection, Tossing Seeds: Singles 89–91. The band’s first full-length for Merge was 1994′s Foolish, which paired their usual punk attitude with a more somber sound. Not a bad start.
#4. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire (2010)
It’s the first Merge album to hit #1. Hopefully this story will end better than “Top of the Pops.”
#3. Girls Can Tell by Spoon (2001)
In 1998, Spoon released A Series of Sneaks for Elektra. It was their second album overall (after 1996′s Telephono) and first for a major label. Expectations were high for both the band and Elektra, but the album sold miserably and Spoon was dropped. It would take three years for their next album, released this time on Merge, and it was well worth the wait. The Spoon of Girls Can Tell is a different band from Telephono and Sneaks; they’re now more confident in their spiky, jittery sound, even if Elektra and album sales said differently, and people began to take notice. Now, they’re playing Madison Square Garden with Arcade Fire and have had two albums—Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga—hit #1 on the Independent Album chart, and another—Transference—debut at #4 on Billboard 200. Through it all, Britt Daniel and Co. haven’t given in to sounding any different than the way they want to. That’s what makes Spoon arguably the most consistent indie rock band out there today.
#2. 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields (1999)
It’s tough to write about love after listening to the Magnetic Fields’ masterpiece. In, yes, 69 songs over three discs, Stephin Merritt somehow manages to portray nearly every kind of love imaginable, from long distance romances (“Come Back from San Francisco”) to wanting to have sex all the time (“Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits”) to never being able to settle down (“Papa Was a Rodeo”) to whatever the hell “Love is Like Jazz” is about. Yes, there are some duds (see: “Love is Like Jazz”), but that’s to be expected with nearly three hours of music—and besides, that’s what makes 69 Love Songs so fantastic. Even if you don’t associate with “Love is Like a Bottle of Gin,” you’ll find something else that you can relate to. There’s literally something for everyone on 69 Love Songs.
#1. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel (1998)
I’d be shocked if this album has gone gold, let alone platinum, but like The Velvet Underground and Nico, it’s one of those records whose influence you can’t trace through record sales. Lead singer and guitarist Jeff Mangum has become indie music’s Howard Hughes (minus the peeing in jars). After releasing Aeroplane, which Pitchfork named the fourth best album of the 1990s, Mangum hasn’t done anything else, musically-speaking. Very little is know about his personal life, and when he does do something NMH-related, like performing five songs at a benefit for Chris Knox earlier this year (his first acoustic set in 10 years), people will gladly wait in line for hours for even a 30 minute glimpse.
Wilco, Franz Ferdinand, Danger Mouse, Arcade Fire and many more have been influenced by Neutral Milk Hotel, specifically Aeroplane (sorry, On Avery Island, although “Naomi” is as good as anything on its follow-up). I highly recommend reading this essay from Radio Exile about how NMH is to last decade what the Pixies were to the 1990s. Thing is, as much as I love NMH, I’m kind of glad Jeff hasn’t gotten the band together to go on a huge tour. The Pixies have been touring pretty consistently since 2004, and I think it’s hurt their legacy just a tad (or maybe it’s because they haven’t released an album in 19 years…Jesus). By remaining reclusive, Neutral Milk Hotel remain the ultimate indie band—and Merge’s greatest triumph.
To check out Merge’s full list of artists, please visit here.