{"id":2744,"date":"2010-05-17T16:23:42","date_gmt":"2010-05-17T20:23:42","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-01-03T14:57:24","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T18:57:24","slug":"i-give-up-rock-or-if-you-can-t-say-anything-nice-about-natalie-merchant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/i-give-up-rock-or-if-you-can-t-say-anything-nice-about-natalie-merchant\/","title":{"rendered":"I-Give-Up Rock, or If You Can\u2019t Say Anything Nice About\u2026Natalie Merchant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rdG618TMc5E?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nWasn&#8217;t there a crack in a <em>Seinfeld<\/em> episode in which Jerry, I believe, said to George something to the effect of anyone who wears a sweatsuit in public for non-sports-related purposes is announcing that they&#8217;ve given up on life? I believe <strong>Natalie Merchant<\/strong> is the musical equivalent of that sweatsuit. I know a lot of you <strong>R.E.M.<\/strong> fans thought she was special when <strong>10,000 Maniacs<\/strong> first hit and she was <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/michael_stipe_is_he_an_irritating_dickhe\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Stipe<\/a><\/strong>&#8216;s tour bus partner, but come on, if you&#8217;re listening to Natalie Merchant in 2010 are you announcing to the world that you&#8217;ve given up on music?<\/p>\n<p><em>Actually<\/em>, rather than pile on with negativity, as we here in the Halls of Rock Town are sometimes wont to do, let&#8217;s make an extra effort effort to find something <em>good<\/em> to say about, you know, stuff that is clearly godawful.<\/p>\n<p>It is in that spirit that we embark on yet another effort to bring some positivity to our proceedings. Please spend some quality time with the video above, then &#8212; if you can &#8212; please find something <em>nice<\/em> to say about it. You&#8217;ll feel a whole lot better, I promise you.<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to your comments. <em>Just remember, if you can&#8217;t say anything nice about this video&#8230; please don&#8217;t say anything at all.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wasn&#8217;t there a crack in a Seinfeld episode in which Jerry, I believe, said to George something to the effect of anyone who wears a sweatsuit in public for non-sports-related purposes is announcing that they&#8217;ve given up on life? I believe Natalie Merchant is the musical equivalent of that sweatsuit. I know a lot of <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/i-give-up-rock-or-if-you-can-t-say-anything-nice-about-natalie-merchant\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[346,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}