Daniel Lanois’s debut album!
In 1977, when the band formed to play at a Halloween party, they picked the name Martha and the Muffins to distance themselves from the more aggressive names most punk bands had at the time.
The idea was to later change it, once they’d found a “better” name for the band.
After an initial single, Insect Love, was released in 1978, then re-recorded in 1979, the debut album, Metro Music, dropped in 1980.
Three singles came from here, but only the lead single, Echo Beach, made waves.
Charting in Canada, Australia, and the U.K., Echo Beach would be the band’s only international success and most likely the reason the band has stuck together to this day.
For the follow-up, Trance and Dance, also released in 1980, the band didn’t manage to deliver any hits. It was, just like the debut, produced by Mike Howlett who after this effort moved on. So did the band’s bass player, Finkle.
For the third album, Finkle was replaced by Jocelyne Lanois, the sister of soon-to-be world-famous Producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, and many more).
Martha and the Muffins’ third album, This is the Ice Age, was Daniel Lanois’ debut album. Unfortunately, it had no big tunes.
During the ’80s, Martha and the Muffins released a further three albums, only the single Black Stations/White Stations with its anti-racist theme had moderate success from the 1984 album Mystery Walk.
By now, they started to experiment with changing the band name to M + M; all members had left, and only Mark and Martha were hanging in there. Now a couple, they probably felt M + M was clever.
In 1992, the couple had a daughter and decided to put the band on ice.
Side projects included a children’s album, Songs from the Tree House. Still, all written and produced by the couple, it was branded as a solo project for Martha. The album won the Canadian Juno Award for the best Children’s album.
In the late ’90s and 2000s, some old band members started to appear again doing reunion gigs. Martha released another solo album, a compilation called Marthology (great name!) appeared in 2020.
Apparently, a new album is in the pipeline. Will it have another Echo Beach? How many members will participate? Is Daniel back? We shall soon find out.
Martha and the Muffins Tunes | Related Pages
Echo Beach
You can learn to play Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| Am | D C | Am | D E5 |
I know it’s out of fashion, and a trifle uncool…
Martha and the Muffins on the web
Artists & Bands
Behind every single tune you learn, there’s an artist or band with an entire catalogue of music, waiting to be discovered.
Find out more about these great Artists & Bands, and let their tunes guide you to success.
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was an article about Martha and the Muffins tunes, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.
