After the trend of bands performing albums live in their entirety, you could wait for it: artists re-recording and releasing records. Alanis Morrisette poured a (then hip) acoustic sauce on her mega-successful debut Jagged Little Pill in 2005, Natalie Merchant believes that the time is now - 20 years later - for a reinterpretation of her solo debut Tigerlily (1995). The first question then is: why?
In the CD booklet she explains it in three pages. Basically, time has changed the 11 songs on Tigerlily as much as the former 10,000 Maniacs singer herself. Listening back, she hears herself 'wavering'. But despite the 'imperfections', Tigerlily was bought by more than five million people. For them this repetition exercise is at most interesting; no song surpasses the original. The greatest merit of Paradise Is There (The New Tigerlily Recordings) is that you are once again reminded of the great class of Merchants debut, which now actually connects seamlessly with the contemporary blue-eyed soul of Natalie Prass and Frazey Ford. (RME)more
