Natalie Merchant has stepped off the pop treadmill. After 17 years with Elektra Records, first as the main songwriter and singer of 10,000 Maniacs and then with million-selling solo albums of her reflective folk-rock, Ms. Merchant decided to go it alone.

Fans of Natalie Merchant will be interested in this as news, but it's also a revealing commentary on the (dysfunctional) state of the music industry.

Mainstream record labels have become pure profit/loss centers specializing in the trafficking of glossy liner notes, accompanied by compact discs which, oh, by the way, just happen to contain some music, if by chance you like that sort of thing.

] "This is the kind of record I want to make, going
] forward," Ms. Merchant said. "I've been writing things
] that are much more obscure and sort of shelving them,
] thinking I can't get this past a corporate boardroom and
] I won't even try."
]
] "I understand that the larger labels are just interested
] in the projects that can generate the most capital for
] their quarter," she continued. "But I didn't want to
] subject the music to that kind of corporate boardroom and
] radio censorship. Why subject myself and the work that I
] do to that kind of environment when it really doesn't
] matter any more?"

Just the first of many, I'm sure.