Aimee Mann

The Safeway by my house is notorious for the weird and wonderful music it plays: an eclectic mix of pop and obscure hits from the 60s through 90s. I was shopping there recently with friends when the song "Voices Carry" came on the radio. I did not recognize the song at all, even when the friends told me all about the hype around the crazy video and controversial topic. We're trying to figure out who sings the song that they know and I don't, and the band turns out to be 'Til Tuesday, at which point I say, "Oh, isn't that the band that Aimee Mann was in?" They respond, "Who is Aimee Mann?"

It turns out Aimee Mann is known to some people  (if at all) only as the lady from that new-wave band from Boston, 'Til Tuesday. However, that has not been my experience. In fact, I had only ever heard of 'Til Tuesday as the band that Aimee Man had previously fronted, which is a slightly different experience. In this regard, she perhaps may even be underrated as an artist in some circles, and maybe even previously from my perspective, although she did win a couple Grammys and NPR called her one of the greatest living songwriters. It's not NPR-editors and -listeners that are in danger of undervaluing her work though. I suspect many of her fans listen to NPR, and vice-versa.

To start things off, I cheated a little. Although not technically part of her solo career chronological discography, I gave a bonus listen to "Time Stands Still" by Rush. In 1987 Rush saw Mann playing in 'Til Tuesday, called her up, and asked her to sing on the track. I have often wondered: How and why did Aimee Mann hook-up with Rush? She's not even Canadian! However, there's apparently not much to the story. Her vocal line in the chorus is totally sweet and it works wonderfully. It's a special moment for a band that so rarely is anything more than just those three guys playing.  Not only is that her voice on the track, that is her floating around in the extremely new-wave video. This track predates her entire modern solo career, but of course I heard it long before anything else she put out herself or with her band, without even realizing who was singing on the track until many years later. She breaks up her new-wave band to start her much longer solo career; the drummer, who wrote "Voices Carry," becomes her manager, and is still to this day. Those two actually had been in a relationship (and before that she dated the guitarist from XTC), but since 1997 she's been married to Michael Penn, a legit singer-songwriter in his own right and brother to actors Sean and Chris Penn. New Yorkers! For a lady that seems to struggle with relationships and mental stability (or maybe it's just the characters in her songs), staying married since 1997 to a rock star while simultaneously being a rock star is an impressive feat. Actually, despite the drama of the yarns she spins, she seems like a relatively grounded person, especially for someone who originally got some attention for having crazy hair. 

'Til Tuesday ~1986: guess which one is Aimee Mann

My actual, pre-blog listening experience with Aimee Mann begins with "Red Vines," a memorable track from her third album Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo (2000). However, I knew the song from some wonderful, random Virgin Records compilation CD that also introduced me to the The Dandy Warhols. Prior to that I might have scanned a Rolling Stone article about her first two albums, but I didn't hear them. They are both good. 1995's I'm with Stupid is perhaps a more fully-realized vision than the first one, Whatever, which she put out in 1993 to critical acclaim and modest sales. That first album actually makes the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die list, which was somewhat surprising: the songs are good but they didn't gel into something more than a mere collection of tracks for me. The song writing is very clever, as are the musical hooks, but these aren't the songs that made an impression on me as much as her later works did. "I Should've Known" is the single, I guess. Roger McGuinn strums a 12-string on one song on the first album, and Squeeze appear on several songs on the next album. There's also some wonderful, sunny backing vocals contributed by Juliana Hatfield on "You Could Make a Killing," a fine song that some may recall from the 1999 soundtrack to Cruel Intentions, sitting there alongside Fatboy Slim and "Bitter Sweet Symphony". "That's Just What You Are," another single, is an additional good song that shows up on the soundtrack to Melrose Place. She once covered "Come Sail Away," and they used it in an episode of Community. 

The soundtrack work culminates in one of her greatest works, music from the Paul Thomas Anderson movie, Magnolia. Far more than merely contributing some songs for the film, the soundtrack is virtually an Aimee Mann album. Some of the songs end up on her on subsequent album. I adore her take on instrumental pieces for the soundtrack. There are just a couple other artist on there, including Supertramp. One can hear the appreciation for Supertramp in Mann's sound; it's kinda adorably dorky that someone, a famous rock star and gifted song-crafter no less, would be unabashedly into such a cheesy band. (Remember, she likes Styx too.) The soundtrack is deeply entwined with the film, with Anderson saying the film was inspired by Mann's music. I haven't seen it in a long time, if ever. Maybe I saw it in college, but I should see it again. Apparently at one point the actors actually sing one her songs. The track "Build that Wall" has an unfortunate modern resonance. "Save Me" is the single, and what a great song it is. It narrowly misses out on the Best Original Song Academy Award to Phil Collins for his song from Disney's Tarzan. Boo!! The really kicker is her remarkable, trippy cover of the song "One," which some will recognize from the proto-metal version that Three Dog Night did, although it is a actually a Harry Nilsson song, of course. Mann originally did it for a Nilsson tribute album and interpolates several of his other songs in her fantastic version.

While on the topic of stage and screen, it should be noted that Aimee Mann has a striking physical appearance and she's done some acting. She's one of the nihilists in The Big Lebowski - the one that sacrifices her toe! She played at the Bronze on Buffy, which sorta counts as acting (she does utter a line, something about how she hates playing in vampire towns). She's had other small roles here and there, and recently voiced a character in an episode of Steven Universe. And she was in a legitimately hilarious Portlandia skit staring Aimee Mann as herself, a struggling musician. Maybe you can still watch some of it here:
                                  

She puts out Lost in Space  in 2002, and a guy like me is going to be disappointed that with a title like that there aren't more beeps, whirls, electronic whistles and bells. Mostly we get a straight-ahead band, but there are occasional keys and strings. It's fine though and sits well here at the peak of her work.

After Magnolia there's a good live album and then my favorite, The Forgotten Arm, a concept album she puts out in 2006. Sure, it wins a Grammy, but for best packaging, which is nice. Characteristically, the album I find "best" is the one absolutely savaged by the very critics that made her a darling. I'll confess to being unfamiliar with Prefix magazine before this moment, but they said it has "Enough bending guitar licks to satisfy the yuppiest of thirtysomething businessmen and enough mellow ballads to satisfy your Dixie Chicks-loving mom." Damning with faint praise indeed! E! said it reveals "how straight-up dull Mann's country-tinged songs can be," and fair enough, but how did you not know that going into this? This album is better, not worse, because it is a concept album. Maybe part of me still thinks that The Wall is the greatest album of album time because it works on so many levels, and most of me knows that isn't true. However, the legit attempt at a full on actual concept album is nothing to scoff at, and this one works well as far as I'm concerned. The other thing I like is the mellow consistency. As much as I like synths and weirdness, the straightforward instrumentation and production on every track works. (It reminds me of the time Ryan Adams decided to quickly cover Taylor Swift's entire 1989 album while leaving the production exactly the same on every song so the guitar tone and drum sounds never change.) The simple production is warm, reassuring, and doesn't get in the way of the storytelling. The storytelling doesn't get in the way of the songs, to my ears, as it did for some reviewers. I appreciate the narrative around addiction and the depths of despair. In a weird-twist, the album's final lyrics allude to happy ending in a distant future, but a bonus track on an import version of the album ambiguously suggests a less rosy ending. What is this, House of Leaves? Seriously though, something about this shockingly straight-ahead rock music makes me like it a lot. I even tolerated the Christmas Album afterwards; it's a timeless-sounding, loungey affair that at least includes that Grinch song. Another couple solid albums follow before her most recent one, Mental Health, which is as much of a downer as the title suggests. It is easily her most sparse album. Although the harrowing topics are handled ably in her insightful lyrics, it was musically a disappointing anti-climax to her discography. I've heard enough though, particularly on that hard rocking live album, to have some confidence that Mann will come roaring back again anytime now.

As her career proceeds the songwriting seems to gain an ever greater gravity and seriousness, at times even a sadness. Her songs always dealt with emotional turmoil, but some of the cleverness gets stripped away eventually and replaced with emotional depth. I came to deeply appreciate the insights she brings to troublesome personal relationships and heavy issues like addiction. I see why she is praised as a songwriter most of all. And yet the music would have to be there for me to care about good songwriting...and it is. That band is not just strumming chords behind her on the live album: she rocks. And I dare say Aimee Mann is the Queen of the Countermelody, whether the synth on near-classic "Freeway" or the slinky melodica(?!) on "Save Me", her good lines and clear melodies are consistently made even more salient by a good ear for counterpoints. Great synths abound in "Charmer" from the latter-day album of the same title. This musical element is even a piece of her overall longevity and success: it highlights her charm in being just weird enough to be equally interesting and accessible.