In My Tribe is an album by the American alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs. Released on July 27, 1987, it was their second major-label album and their first to achieve large-scale success. John Lombardo, Natalie Merchant's songwriting partner on previous albums, left the band in 1986. Merchant began collaborating with the other members of the band, most notably with Rob Buck.
In 1989, the recording of Cat Stevens' "Peace Train" was removed from the U.S. CD version after comments made by Stevens (by then a Muslim convert and known as Yusuf Islam) that were perceived to be supportive of the fatwa on Salman Rushdie. The song remained on LP record and cassette copies and CDs released outside the United States. The song was later included in a 2-CD compilation, Campfire Songs: The Popular, Obscure and Unknown Recordings, released on January 24, 2004, by Elektra/Asylum/Rhino Records.
The front cover of the CD edition is a black-and-white photograph of children with bows and arrows in an archery class,[1][2] a theme used by record[3] and cassette editions[4] with different covers.
In a contemporary review, Rolling Stone's J. D. Considine wrote that "with In My Tribe, the group has finally come into maturity. It isn't simply that the songs are richer and more resonant this time around; the band itself seems to have grown."[10]Rolling Stone later ranked the album number sixty-five on their list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s, summing it up as "a poetic, heartfelt message about social concerns such as alcoholism, child abuse and illiteracy."[11]AllMusic reviewer Chris Woodstra wrote that "the album proves powerful not for the ideas [...] but rather for the graceful execution and pure listenability."[5]
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