Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small

by Director Centre for Creative and Performing Arts and Lecturer in English Studies John Cook, Ray Porter (Reader), Mac McCaughan (Contributor)

For twenty years, Merge Records has remained true to their belief that you can sign bands because you love their music and respect what they're trying to do. As giant corporate labels struggle for survival, Merge has, in the unlikeliest of times, garnered a loyal group of artists and a secure and growing fan base and, most important, has brought us some of the best music of our time.Our Noise tells the story of how Merge did it and continues to do it, through the eyes of cofounders Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance, their fellow band members, friends, and the bands who signed on with them. It includes interviews with and profiles of Superchunk, Butterglory, Neutral Milk Hotel, Lambchop, Spoon, the Magnetic Fields, and Arcade Fire.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Art, Pop Culture, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published September 15, 2009

Reviews

[Faanga · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was certainly outstanding.

[Andrew Horton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad that this leaked out onto shelves about a week early (in true indie fashion - snort!)! The book is a love letter to the label that once brought us Butterglory, the 3D's, Angels of Epsistemology, Versus, SUPERCHUNK, the Magnetic Fields and now brings us....uhh....the Arcade Fire and celebrity vehicle "She and Him?" Yes, organized indie rock is truly deader than dead, but those of us that lived through its early-to-mid nineties heyday can get all weepy with this handsomely designed memory book and oral history. It's full of color pictures of original show fliers, tons of pictures (Laura Ballance as a teen goth! Mac Machaughan with dreadlocks! Stephin Merritt in camo undies in someone's kitchen!), concept art, contracts, personal letters and memos on label letterhead, etc. But the real meat here is the actual text. I'm not normally a big fan of "oral history" books because they usually end up being a big, unreadable mess, but the book is really divided into specific chapter/stories about particular bands and eras, and each one of those chapters has a pretty concise group of people chiming in with their .02. It works, when these things usually don't. My other favorite element is that in spite of being a celebration, it's not really a label hagiography - there are plenty of acknowledged mistakes, missteps, some pretty hateful back-and-forth dialogue between former label mates...nothing is whitewashed, and even Chunk - the original "Chunk" drummer of (Super)chunk - was at least given the opportunity to tell his side of the story (alas, he declined). My personal favorite is the last page or two of the Magnetic Fields chapter, as Stephin lobs volley after volley of insults against Mac and Laura and the label in general ("The merge logo is butt-ugly. It's a potato stamp. I made a better one and they didn't want to use it." "Mac and Laura are completely insincere in their embrace of the whole "indie rock" thing and it's just a marketing concept to them. I'm not joking.") and they retort with politeness and "well, we have the greatest album that Stephin has made and will ever make, based on his output since leaving the label." Hot!

[Ben Sweezy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is full of stories about Superchunk becoming Merge Records, and then great chapters on Neutral Milk Hotel, Magnetic Fields, Spoon, and Arcade Fire.

I love it because the whole premise of the book is relating all of those artists and the musical movements that they grew out of back to Chapel Hill. The story of Arcade Fire driving down to meet Merge Records and the founder taking them out to dinner somewhere in Chapel Hill. Neutral Milk Hotel's album duplication order form putting the artist's phone number down as "currently disconnected." Copies of indie 'zines chronicaalling and labelling Chapel Hill as the "IT spot in punk/rock/indie/hardcore/anything". Photos of label HQs in such quintessentially Chapel Hill and Carrboro looking houses. Playing at the old Cradle, Cave etc. Comparison of 1980s Chapel Hill vs Raleigh hardcore scenes and their relationship with bands in DC.

Good times. These are part of the legacy and legends of Chapel Hill of which I was never a part directly but have been swimming around the edges from the very first time I opened up Spectator or Independent Weekly in middle school. I like that.

And yes, I read all that I did between Pentagon City metro and my house before gifting this to Rachel for Christmas. Sorry Rachel, I wanted to make sure it was sufficiently awesome :)

[Edwin Arnaudin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd been eyeing this one from afar for a few years and was motivated to check it out after the latest in a series of rewarding interviews with Merge artists – this one with co-founder Mac McCaughan in advance of his recent show at Asheville's The Mothlight.

There are no doubt other ways to tell the story of the NC label's rise and longevity, but Cook convinced me that an oral history is the most entertaining approach. From Laura Ballance's run-in with Courtney Love in 1992 to Stephin Merritt's qualms with the Merge logo, the anecdotes keep coming and the writing never lags. Plus it's fun to read about places I know well from my graduate school days, such as an early label office above the Armadillo Grill in downtown Carrboro and the tiny Chapel Hill bar/venue The Cave, where – and I'm still having trouble picturing this – Arcade Fire played an early show. Also, the number of important sets that were played at Cat's Cradle continues to astound me. I've enjoyed every act I've seen there, but its history almost completely eluded me as an attendee...and that's how this book makes you feel: like you were in the midst of major happenings but that they were done by down-to-earth, real Topeka...err Chapel Hill/Durham people. Such is the Merge way.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a fan of Merge Records like I am, you probably like almost everything they do. They're so consistently great and this oral history of their first twenty years is outstanding. Funny and revealing recollections from Mac and Laura share the pages with recollections from other musicians and record industry folks. My favorite parts were the chapters on little-known genius's Butterglory, the rise of Neutral Milk Hotel, the accidental "country" of Lambchop, the ups and down of Spoon, and the stuff about Superchunk trying to finally get on radio with "Hyper Enough."
Plus there's a ton of cool photos, show posters, and personal correspondence. A highly entertaining read about an inspiring record label that has stayed true to the musicians (M. Ward, Ladybug Transistor, Arcade Fire, Spoon, Lambchop. Magnetic Fields, Richard Buckner, Camera Obscura, and of course, the almighty Superchunk)they love.

[Duke Haney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does this book really rate five stars? Probably not, but I did wolf it down, being the indie-music freak, stuck in the nineties, that I am. I've been revisiting Superchunk, Butterglory, Polvo, Seaweed, etc., since I finished Our Noise, and I'm once again crushing on Laura, while feeling all "Gosh, what a swell guy" about Mac. One thing that especially caught my interest in the book was Merge's take on the defection of ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead to Interscope in 2000 or so. I knew ToD, and I have to say I thought they were making a mistake, but when the CEO of a huge label is flying his personal jet to Texas to see your ass after reading about you in -- what magazine was it? Vanity Fair? -- and baiting you with memories of Lennon in the studio and that kind of shit, well, I guess it's hard to resist.

[Ginna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skipped around a bit in this one. Probably would not have stumbled upon it except for my Rockstar bookclub, but glad to know more about one of my downtown neighbors. Pretty cool that some friends helped put this book together. Because I missed out on a lot of these bands' glory days by being out of the Triangle or just on the periphery of any kind of music scene (I DJ'd @WXDU for a year & saw some of the MERGE albums come through the playlist), I wasn't invested in most of the band stories. However, it was fun to see how the label came together& struggled, & I loved reading about the Magnetic Fields & Arcade Fire & Lambchop.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fascinating, and I'm not even coming from a background of having listened to much Superchunk. I can only name a handful of their songs, but this definitely made me more curious about them (ditto on some of the other Merge bands).
I usually struggle to make progress on nonfiction works, but I didn't want to put this one down. My only complaint (aside from wishing it was longer) is with the horrific foreword from Ryan Adams - it is a example of why I am leery of reading nonfiction about music. Too often, writers seem to think they have to be pretentious and abstruse, to the point of making things unreadable.

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having worked at a record label, I could relate to a lot of parts of this book. I know a lot more about the behind the scenes of a small label than your average person so it was almost nerdy how into the business-like stuff the story got. Overall, the book does a good job of telling the story of Superchunk alongside the story of some of the label's bigger bands. Well written and a good read for any respectable music nerd.

[Robert Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read about Merge Records, one of the only successful indie record labels to survive the past two decades. Told in a roundtable narrative fashion. Highly entertaining.

[Niklas Pivic · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really, really good book on a do-it-yourself record company that didn't know how to do stuff, found it out themselves and are still alive and kicking, despite all kinds of problems, including being in a quite major band - Superchunk - themselves and at the same time giving artists on their label a perspectively big piece of the cake.

People ask the question a lot: Why did you decide to put out your own records? But it’s not like there was anyone else asking to put them out. —Mac McCaughan

And they learned and learned:

Steve Albini: They were pretty lighthearted. There wasn’t a lot of farting around. Coming from an independent background, Mac understood the economics of making a record independently. You have to try to save as much money as possible. And it’s much more efficient and it costs less money to have your shit together and be well rehearsed. Less money than it does to sort of hope that things come together in the studio.

It's a lot like the English label, Factory, in some ways:

Laura: We weren’t thinking of it as a business, we were thinking about it as this fun, cool thing. Contracts seemed like a gesture of mistrust. We were putting out records by people we knew and were friends with, and that could trust us and that we could trust. We’d talk about the basic premise, and that was that. In hindsight, I think that was really naïve. But at first, there really wasn’t that much money involved, so it didn’t really seem to matter.

Brian McPherson: (Attorney for Merge and Superchunk) I always thought it was a bad idea. I wrote a book called Get It In Writing. But that’s obviously their way.

Then, the money came in.

Matt Suggs: I got talked to by a lot of completely cheesy-ass industry people, which always freaked me out. I wanted to say, “Have you listened to the record? This is not going to get played on the radio.” In 1996, Butterglory was offered a $50,000 publishing-contract advance – wherein a publishing company buys a songwriter’s catalog copyrights, in hopes that the songs blow up one day. Matt Suggs They were offering a ridiculous amount of money. It started out at 30 grand, and then it was 40 grand. And we kept saying no. It was ridiculous, because I’m like a twenty-three-year-old working a deep-fryer, making $6 an hour, and I’m saying, “No, thirty grand is too low.” So when it got to $50,000, I said to Debby, “Look man, we should take this fucking money, because there’s no way we’re ever going to sell enough records for them to recoup even half that. So let’s just take their fucking money.” The publishing company sent a $10,000 check as first payment, and Debby and Matt went to Santa Monica to sign the papers.

Not much debauchery, though:

Despite the newfound popularity, there was little debauchery on the road with Superchunk.

Jon Wurster: I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like on my first tour, so I brought a box of twelve condoms along. Having no idea what was going to happen. But I might want to have twelve of them, you know? I didn’t use any of them. Never opened it. Still have them.

About the classic Steve Albini article:

In 1993, Steve Albini wrote an article for Chicago journal The Baffler called “The Problem With Music.” It was an astringent and clear-eyed case study of the process by which a band is signed to a major, beginning with the seemingly hip A&R rep who first makes contact: “After meeting ‘their’ A&R guy, the band will say to themselves and everyone else, ‘He’s not like a record company guy at all! He’s like one of us.’ And they will be right. That’s one of the reasons he was hired.” It ends with a detailed accounting of how, after lawyers, managers, producers, promotional budgets, and all the other fees necessitated by the major-label system are taken into account, a band can sign a $1-million contract, sell 250,000 copies of their first record, and end up $14,000 in debt to the record company. Its final line is, “Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.”

On the advent of The Magnetic Fields:

In late 1991, Mac picked up a new 7-inch that had just come into Schoolkids. It was a release from Harriet Records, a Boston label founded by Harvard University history professor Timothy Alborn two years earlier. The A-side was called “100,000 Fireflies,” and it was a haunting, spare, and strange amalgam: An artificial tick-tock drum-machine beat beneath what sounded like a toy piano playing sugary melodies and a gorgeous, classic woman’s voice singing desperately sad lyrics with a delivery reminiscent of Petula Clark. It reminded Mac of a lo-fi, Motown-inflected Yaz, featured one of the most memorable opening lines ever laid to tape – “I have a mandolin / I play it all night long / It makes me want to kill myself” – and sounded like pop music from the distant future as it might have been imagined in 1965. The band was called the Magnetic Fields. Mac had never heard of them, but he loved “100,000 Fireflies” and played it so frequently in the van on the road that Wurster suggested that they cover it. Mac had been thinking the same thing, and they came up with a version that swapped out the original’s delicate reserve for furious guitars and Mac’s urgent, strained vocal delivery. It quickly became a crowd favorite at shows; Superchunk recorded its version during the On the Mouth sessions in Hollywood and eventually released it as a B-side on a single. Word eventually got back to the Magnetic Fields, then located in Boston, that some punk-rock band was playing their song. On October 22, 1992, Stephin Merritt, who wrote “100,000 Fireflies,” and his bandmate Claudia Gonson went to a Superchunk show at nearby Brandeis University.

Stephin Merritt: I was horrified. It’s probably best if I don’t go into the details of why I was horrified. But we thought of punk rock as reactionary. We thought of punk rock as… Stalin.

Not that Mac himself is very Stalinesque.

Stephin Merritt: No. More like Emma Goldman, maybe.

On "69 Love Songs":

The next Magnetic Fields record, 69 Love Songs, would deliver Merritt from the indie-rock ghetto. There’s a story that Gonson tells to help explain how 69 Love Songs came into being: In 1994, Merge asked the Magnetic Fields to play at their fifth anniversary celebration at the Cat’s Cradle. On the drive down from Boston, they stayed overnight in Washington, D.C. In the middle of the night, with the band members sprawled out across someone’s living room, Merritt sat up in the dark and shouted, “Indie Rocks!” The rest of the band wearily humored him as he explained: In the late seventies, pet rocks were a fad. So why not Indie Rocks? Or Soft Rocks? Or Punk Rocks? He went back to sleep.

The next day, when they got to Chapel Hill, Gonson collected rocks from the parking lot behind the Cat’s Cradle, went to an art supply store, and painted up about twenty Merge Indie Rocks. She sold them for $1 apiece that night at the show. Claudia Gonson So that’s exactly Stephin Merritt in a nutshell. He has these ideas, and he never thinks about executing them. For every idea he executes, he has three thousand that he doesn’t. 69 Love Songs was the rare one that he did execute. It’s the kind of record that has an origin myth: In January 1998, Merritt was drinking alone at a piano bar on the Upper East Side, writing songs. He was listening to Stephen Sondheim, and thinking not about love but about the American composer Charles Ives and his book 114 Songs, and – “Indie Rocks!” – decided that he would write a musical revue called 100 Love Songs.

It would feature various performers singing a vast and comprehensive survey of every kind of song there is to be written about love, from country to punk to krautrock to Irish folk ballad, all to be penned by him. The idea was quintessential Merritt: A taxonomic and clinical take on the most intimate and emotional of subjects. It quickly dawned on him that such a musical would be a challenge to finance, so he downgraded the idea to an album of 100 love songs. When that proved excessively long, he trimmed it down to 69: A suggestive number that had the virtue of being visually appealing on an album cover.

Arcade Fire signed with Merge, based on them being nice people. They left their previous label for Merge and wrote this to Merge:

Hey Mac. We just talked to Alien 8 and told them we were going with you guys. It went pretty well. They knew all along what the situation was, so it wasn’t too much of a shock. You can make an announcement. (I am sitting in the studio and we are mixing neighborhood RIGHT NOW!) :) —Régine

On how major labels basically wasted money:

Glenn Boothe: When I worked at Sony, I used to have an $18,000 expense account. And I was expected to spend it. And a lot of times that meant me and my friends went out and ate sushi. Because it’s got to be spent. I used to date this girl who worked for a label, and one day she told me, “Yeah, I needed a Snapple. So I had a friend messenger me one from her office.” So instead of going downstairs and buying a Snapple, she spent $20 or whatever to have it messengered.

All in all: a very inspirational, tough and loving story about a little record label that spawned a lot of brilliant artists and releases, and still continues to run to this day, having now been up for 25 years. That's really something.

[Steve Erickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mixing oral history of Merge Records with chapters profiling the labej's key artists, this book was published soon after the label's triumphant release of Arcade Fire's second album, NEON BIBLE. It describes the owners facing a future where downloads triumphed over physical LPs and CD. Merge started out with 7"s of North Carolina punk bands and wound up able to compete with major labels, topping the Billboard charts, earning gold albums and winning Album of the Year Grammy with Arcade Fire and doing almost as well with Spoon. The book emphasizes its honest dealings with musicians - if their records don't sell, they may only receive royalty checks for $1,000, but they will receive them. Superchunk's own unpleasant experience with Matador Records in this regard was one of the main reasons Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance founded the label to begin with. But I'd love to read an updated second edition of this book, which was published 11 years ago in a very different music industry. Merge is still putting out first-rate music - take the albums they've released by Destroyer, Caribou and Waxahatachee so far this year - but both Arcade Fire and Spoon have left the label. Rock has become a niche interest. Under circumstances where musicians can't tour for the foreseeable future or even make money by selling their music to new TV and movie productions, what future does independent music have?

[Hillary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why did it take me eight years to read this book?

"Our Noise" is the intertwined story of (my favorite f'ing band of all time) Superchunk and the independent record label two of the band members co-founded, Merge Records. In hindsight, how could their stories not be so intertwined, it makes perfect sense. And in telling this oral history in an endearing, lovingly pastiche sort of way, selecting certain Merge bands to chronicle as reflections of Merge's ascent, Cook along with Ballance and MacCaughan put together a book that made me feel like I was sitting in their office in Durham, North Carolina and being invited in and allowed to hang out and listen to them chat as various artists rolled in and out of the room (and keeping to myself how shocked I would have been that they let me in to hang out). They took me on a trip back in time, back when I first discovered the band after "Foolish" had come out, over the albums and tours I'd caught them in different cities and clubs, and into mine (and their) adulthoods.

Nontraditional, endearing music nonfiction.

My only disappointment is a selfish one: that the book happened to end at a point when the band had put itself on indefinite hiatus. I would like to read the as yet unwritten part about why they decided to regroup beyond the occasional show to make two fine, rocking full-length albums nine years later.

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

When my kids were little, they asked me if they could get a CD for me for xmas/birthday. I told them I wanted Foolish by Superchunk. Of course, they couldn't find it in suburban NJ. They were only kids. I ordered it through the local indie record store (along with the soundtrack to Little Shop of Horrors. "The one with Rick Moranis? Really?" -- my friend Bobby who owned the store) and wrapped it for myself from them.

I didn't know that 6 years later I'd be living right in the lap of Merge records (for just about 20 years). And enjoying all the amazing music. I saw Lambchop. I saw Magnetic Fields. I saw Bob Mould. I saw Neutral Milk Hotel. The drummer from Archers of Loaf slept off a belly of pasta on my couch on NFL Sundays. I saw Teenage Fanclub!!! TEENAGE FANCLUB!!! I walked by Arcade Fire at the Carrboro Town Hall. I saw Superchunk numerous times (including eating burritos).

This book introduced me to Butterglory, for which I am eternally grateful.

My favorite of all the bands though, has to be the Rock*A*Teens. I got to see them multiple times. Boy howdy, they're good to my ears.

This book was very nostalgic for me. I knew all the landmarks and places, most of the names, almost all of the music. I didn't know all the details. I appreciate what Merge did for and with the musicians. They made the time I spent there fantastic.

[Michael Roeder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. Merge Records has been a staple in my record collection for years so the history of the label had a nice combination of bands that I was familiar with and not. The chapters dedicated to the bands that helped put Merge on the map was a great way to flesh the story of the label out. Of particular note were the chapters on Spoon and Arcade Fire for me.

At times I felt that there was too much focus on Mac and Laura's relationship, but ultimately that is a crucial part of the Superchunk and Merge history.

Ultimately an easy read with a lot of great archival photos too. It cuts off at 2009 where the book touches on the beginning of the decline of record sales and to rise of MP3's. It mentions that at the time vinyl sales were around 3% of their total sales. Those numbers have likely changed with the resurgence of vinyl interest increasing after 2009 and the rise of streaming services hasn't even happened at that point. It would be cool to maybe get an online article that covers the time since the book with some new perspectives on the industry.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is written as an oral history, and those types of books generally aren't good audiobooks. There are too many points of view to really keep any of them in perspective. This one was okay since there were two main points of view and then supporting views for each section. Still hard to follow, but not the worst.

My full disclosure here is that I have never really heard of Merge records. The only band here that I have really ever loved was Neutral Milk Hotel. That section was pretty small. I had heard of many of the bands - I lived in the 90's. But never really listened to any of them. I have a long list of albums to have a listen to right now.

The final part where it was an author talking about the state of the music industry, Merge's place in it and what the future might look like was easily the part that was most interesting to me. But, I am a sucker for these types of persevering underdog stories.

[Chris Jamieson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think my chronic five-star ratings have to do more with my infrequency and subsequent appreciation of actually picking up a book, but I gotta say - this was really great, and it hit a stride when I got to the Magnetic Fields chapter (one of my favorites) and didnt let up from there.

(Okay, i skipped thru some of the Arcade Fire stuff, but read enough to get the gist 😆)

One thing that I realized is how actually all over-the-map Merge artists are. I tend to kinda think of them all as a whole, but there are large leaps from NMH to Superchunk to Lambchop.

Also, so much grotesque insight on major label overspending back in the "good ol' days"! Not that I'm morally innocent from the moral foibles of capitalism, but the claims of "I could have recorded a whole album for the cost of one dinner" still makes me kinda nauseous.

[Byron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was co-written by the founders of Merge Records, so who knows how true any of it is, but it seems very true. It's surprisingly candid about the business of running an independent record label, and it's one of the most interesting things I've ever read in that particular regard. It loses points because the story of Superchunk, the main band on Merge and the topic of at least like half of this book, is the least interesting story of a rock band possible (they're literally accountants who rock out in their spare time), and because there's a lot of great albums on Merge that go almost completely unmentioned. You learn more about Butterglory than his own parents know about him, and literally nothing at all about Destroyer's Rubies. Priorities fail.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was fabulous. A book about a fantastic record label that detailed the early history of not only the label but excellent bands such as Superchunk, the Magnetic Fields, and the Arcade Fire (among others) made it a very worthy read. I even discovered a few bands I had never heard of or not heard enough of from reading about them and their various bouts of success. I appreciated the setup of the book as well given the oral history and copious amount of pictures included throughout. This book also made me further appreciate the struggles that bands go through when trying to increase their audience, as well as better understand what independent labels have to consider when promoting said bands. Great book, it's a keeper.

[KendraLee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love listening to the music a book like this describes as I read. With "Our Noise" I found myself discovering a great band I'd never heard of (Lambchop), rediscovering great bands I hadn't listened to for awhile (Polvo, Archers of Loaf) and getting into bands I'd heard of but never got around to listening to (Spoon). I really enjoyed the way the book was laid out as well. The author set the scene with a short background paragraph and then he let the people involved tell the story, interview style. It was fun to read and I loved that so many old photos and posters were included. A great history of great music!

[Dina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun book on Superchunk and the little label that band members Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance created, Merge Records. Mainly focused on their band and the creation and functioning operation and growth of their label, Our Noise also features stories about other artists (Butterglory, Neutral Milk Hotel, Lambchop, Spoon, Arcade Fire) and their contributions to Merge's, at the time of the book's print, 20 year run as a highly successful label originally known for 7" releases and now houses gold, platinum and Grammy award winning artists

[Downward · Rating 3 out of 5]

a history here of merge records wherein every other chapter is about superchunk and the in between chapters are about: butterglory, neutral milk hotel, magnetic fields, spoon, lambchop, and the arcade fire. of course there are a bunch of important bands missing, but it would be impossibly long to cover the entire merge catalogue in depth and this gives a really solid overview of the whole thing. if you have a relationship to these bands and to 90s indie rock, this will be a fun and quick read: if not, I don't know. Why would you pick this up if not?

[Manoek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over het onstaan, ontwikkelen en de visie van platenlabel Merge met vermakelijke touranekdotes van bands die getekend bij het label zijn. Ook genoeg nieuwe bands te ontdekken en met heel toffe foto's toegevoegd. De positiviteit straalt er vanaf, en hoewel ik geloof dat Merge een fijne plek is om bij getekend te zijn, daaraan is te merken dat het boek autobiografisch is geschreven. Ook moest ik vaak terugzoeken wie de aangehaalde personen ook alweer waren, dus het las niet erg lekker weg.

[10thumbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly Recommended. Absolutely terrific and engaging oral history of Merge Records — and i'm not even a Merge (or much of a Superchunk) fan. I maybe have 15 of their 400+ records and have always just sort of admired from afar. It was just a delight to read about bands and a label doing things right, doing them well and surviving and thriving as they head into their 3rd decade. Merge is now entering their 4th decade and I'd love to read an addendum to this.

[Taylor McCulley · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a huge fan of a handful of Merge Records bands, this really got me excited (clearly because I read this in two days). I love how this book gives little biographies to some of the bands on the label, some of the origins on the label and how they’ve succeeded business-wise where major labels have failed.
First book in a long while I’ve really enjoyed.

[Dan Slimmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

a well-written, well-researched, and seemingly honest story of merge. very cool photos, too.

i found it fascinating to learn about how the music industry works. the analysis of why some successful artists prefer indie labels was cogent and insightful.

[Stevie Ceruolo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly complete look into one of the most significant and influential independent labels since Sub-Pop, however it reads more like a long Pitchfork article than a deep dive. I can respect the effort, but a real complete work is still desired.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great reminder about how many awesome records have come out on Merge from Superchunk and so many other cool bands. It's been a fun trip down memory lane and has me listening to Polvo, Butterglory, and others for the first time in a long while.

[Benjamin Van Buren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great. Even made the Arcade Fire seem interesting. Could’ve done without the binding falling apart in my hand though.

[Mansfield Public · Rating 5 out of 5]

The inspiring and fun true story of an indie record label that has put out some of my all time favorite records. -Matt