Mercury Rev is an American rock music group, formed in the late 1980s in Buffalo, New York. Original personnel were David Baker (vocals), Jonathan Donahue (vocals, guitars), Sean Mackowiak, a.k.a. "Grasshopper" (guitars, clarinet), Suzanne Thorpe (flute), Dave Fridmann (bass) and Jimy Chambers (drums).
With their early records, Mercury Rev offered experimental, psychedelic rock, which gradually shifted to a melodic, ornate sound. Mercury Rev are often compared to The Flaming Lips, and in fact have close ties: Soon after the band’s formation, Donahue also joined the Flaming Lips as second guitarist and appeared on two of their albums. Furthermore, since the 1990 album In a Priest Driven Ambulance, Dave Fridmann has co-produced every Flaming Lips studio album to date except 1993’s Transmissions from the Satellite Heart.
Despite considerable critical acclaim, their early releases never gave Mercury Rev more than cult popularity, though they appeared on the smaller second stage at some 1993 Lollapalooza stops. Baker left after their second record, Boces (1993), citing musical and personal disputes; he later recorded an album as Shady. With his departure, the darker, more experimental and less accessible features of their music began to disappear.
The band’s first post-Baker album, See You on the Other Side (1995), found them in transition, and the 1998 release of the acclaimed Deserter’s Songs (which featured appearances by Garth Hudson and Levon Helm of The Band) made Mercury Rev unexpected pop stars. In the UK, NME Magazine made Deserter’s Songs their Album of the Year. Donahue’s earnest, high-pitched vocals and concentration on relatively concise, melodic songs gave the band’s material an entirely new feel and much increased popularity. Deserter’s Songs spawned three UK top 40 singles and was music magazine NME’s album of the year for 1998 (see 1998 in music).