Aimee Mann, S+D

Yeah, now I've heard it. It's just OK. Too many farty new wave keyboards, a lot of weird double tracked vocals, mostly the usual mid-tempo stuff, though a song called "Gamma Ray" is pretty rocking.

i have the same problems w/ her as a lot of other folks: her songs all seem to have the same tempi, the arrangements too tend to be frustratingly similar and "tangy" in that jon brion way i find kind of bloodless, etc. although her songs from it are pretty good, i can't abide the movie magnolia so that's not exactly a plus for me, either.

but damned if this new track isn't a crazy earworm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA1cX-wgMdM

and it doesn't really seem to grow stale with repeated listens. needless to say the jon hamm and tom scharpling appearances in the video are a bonus.

am i wrong in finding the way the piano is treated in this tune sort of reminiscent of new wave arrangements? or is it just that the retro video is influencing me?

I am super duper into this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQxoW78KwuM

i didn't really care for "charmer," the chorus is so staid and inert, but "labrador" is gorgeous and reminds me of how much time i'd spend in high school listening to bachelor no. 2 and lost in space

i bought this new one and... like most aimee mann records, i didn't really care for it on first listen. going to see her in jan though and i figure i will come to love it by then. it just seemed even more aimee mann-y than the other aimee mann-y records.

Labrador is definitely great, pretty sure it's calling back musically to her Til Tuesday days (if the video didn't make that incredibly obvious already), but with her older improved songwriting chops

Have you guys seen the video for Soon Enough? One of my favorite songs on the album and it turns out it was cowritten by Tim Heidecker??

Pretty intriguing that she's taking Ted Leo out on tour. I'm catching her on Wednesday.

Caught them at Town Hall a couple weeks ago, they were both good. I dig the kinda-spacey submarine stage setup they have with the lead guitarist on one end and Doctor Who at the other.

(Spoiler alert - Leo does a better job on "Living A Lie" than James Mercer, IMO)

http://www.spin.com/articles/aimee-mann-medianet-copyright-lawsuit/

still don't understand what the heck MediaNet is

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQXeKiyblGq_UZTLMWjl0MEIyxw5mKMhO0HYbQs0bbzpDR87I6Cuw

http://pitchfork.com/news/53705-ted-leo-and-aimee-mann-announce-collaborative-album-and-tour-as-the-both-share-milwaukee/

Finally, someone who has kicked Mann out of her perma mid-tempo rut.

psyched

Yeah, she's too good to be pigeonholed.

To do it to herself that is...

Her bass playing is pretty wicked on this!

yeah, i'm excited for this. is it possible Mann has a stronger ILM following than Leo?

Ok, so this is a pretty solid cross between the two songwriters. Interesting to hear the effect each has on the other, melodically, musically, lyrically. Sounds like a true collaboration. Tempers Ted Leo a bit, pumps up his power-pop, grits/perks up Mann, lets her explore more rough edges. They're both singing on every song, but generally one takes lead while the other plays support/harmony. Brightening this endless winter right now.

Sounds good, can't wait

Man, "Lost in Space" is such a great record. She leans a little too hard on drugs (which she has conceded is a shorthand metaphor), but it's just such a dark, beautiful record.

No doubt! It's wonderful

You get The Both? Definitely some good tracks, "Milwaukee" still probably the best track, weird/fun how Ted brings Aimee back to her '90s mode a little.

Lost in Space is her best album by some margin, I think.

Best Al-Anon record ever. The drugs can be shorthand for any addiction, and being in the orbit of someone with an addiction (and loving/resenting it).

if i had to pick one album, it would be bachelor #2. i think it is one of the most perfect female singer-songwriter albums after the classic joni mitchell records from the seventies. lost in space i never really got into, i was really disappointed after bachelor #2. it seemed so middle of the road, so unimaginative. maybe i should give it a spin gain.

LiS is a subtler record than B#2 but, I think, a more rewarding one.

Only reason I wouldn't pick B#2 is that it followed Magnolia and obv overlaps a lot with it, which made it a bit anti-climactic, imo. Also, lacks her cover of "One" from the aforementioned.

So: what's up with "Lost in Space" being so thick with drug-stuff, and then that album being followed by "The Forgotten Arm," which is also thick with drug stuff?

Bachelor #2 is always gonna be my favorite, I think, I consider Magnolia to be a companion EP to it (instrumental of "Nothing is Good Enough" really solidifies that feel) as well being the album that got me into Mann. But I'm With Stupid and Lost In Space are both great as well, for different reasons.

I had the Mag soundtrack, then bought direct the EP that preceded B#2. And then B#2 was basically most of the songs from Magnolia plus the EP .

She put Whatever and I'm With Stupid back in print, right? I once saw her, and this one person was yelling for "Superball." Mann couldn't believe it, but I like that song, too.

I also would pick B#2 -- and Whatever -- ahead of LiS. Maybe even The Forgotten Arm! Something about LiS just makes it a little less memorable for me.

I've seen her a couple times, and at one show she took requests. Someone asked for "Jacob Marley's Chain" from Whatever, and she had to go over the chords with the band before she could remember how to play it.

lost in space benefits from jon brion's wizardry and magic fuzztones and features some really stunning highlights but imo the forgotten arm is stronger top-to-bottom

No Jon Brion on "Lost in Space," iirc. Or any of the post "Magnolia" stuff. (Maybe Brion was too in charge during "I'm With Stupid"?)

guitar tones on bachelor no. 2 and lost in space are all time, warm resonant lasers

cried to "it's not" at work today, woo

yeah, I'm With Stupid has ton of Brion-isms, wacky circus typewriter effects and so on
"it's not" is all-time

I've seen her a couple times, and at one show she took requests. Someone asked for "Jacob Marley's Chain" from Whatever, and she had to go over the chords with the band before she could remember how to play it.

― bi-polar uncle (its OK-he's dead) (Phil D.), Monday, April 21, 2014 1:01 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Does she have some kind of disowny thing happening with her first two records? When I saw her about 5 years ago, the whole show was requests, pieces of paper thrown up on stage. A few times she looked at the paper and curtly said, "Nope, don't do that one anymore," and the oldest song she played was from Magnolia.

no, she still plays a good amount of stuff from the first two, like "4th of July", "Choice in the Matter", and "You Could Make a Killing" are standards in the set list... I've seen her perform some odd stuff out too like "Fifty Years After the Fair", "Frankenstein", "Ray" in the last few years
there are a few I don't think we'll ever see again, though, like "Put Me On Top"

oh yeah, of course "That's Just What You Are" comes back around a lot

if any album has been mysteriously ignored it's The Forgotten Arm - I never actually heard this one, so I tend to notice only "Dear John" still gets played from that one

Huh, interesting...I guess it's possible the requests she refused were 'Til Tuesday songs.

No Jon Brion on "Lost in Space," iirc. Or any of the post "Magnolia" stuff. (Maybe Brion was too in charge during "I'm With Stupid"?)
--Josh in Chicago

Doh. That's right. Not sure why I connect this with the end of the JB run but I stand by my contention that the guitar tones on this record are magic :)

I've heard her do "Voices Carry," for sure. A lovely version.

She did it on the Acoustic Alchemy tour, but Michael Penn sang it.

At least at the show I went to.

she played it on the bachelor #2 tour, which was the last time I saw her.

I once saw her, and this one person was yelling for "Superball." Mann couldn't believe it, but I like that song, too.

I remember "Coming Up Close" being requested three of the four times I've seen her (1999, 2000, 1996, possibly only wasn't in 2008 cause she was only doing a mini-performance previewing Smilers tracks) but never being played. But I've seen her do "Voices Carry" more than once, and honour a request for "(The Other End of the) Telescope."

(oh, and when she performed "Voices Carry" in 2000, Michael Penn did the jerk boyfriend's lines from the VC video)

That album was OK, I'm actually more excited about the podcast.

Don’t remember if I’ve said this before, but I remember seeing Mann at the height of my fandom for her & being utterly devastated at her lack of stage presence / charisma / “star quality”

I felt like she was the anti-Elvis.

Kinda like The Cars! I never really thought about commonalities between the two, but the craft, the deadpan, the midtempo slogs match up all sorts of ways. Both even headed to Boston to get their careers moving.

Was going to say, she could have written "Drive" and now I see she's covered it.

Good post. You're on a roll, bendy.

the anti-Elvis

Was she uncomfortable, ill-at-ease or just "too normal"? Are there any other artists you'd say the same about?

Michael J. Fox got no Elvis in him

And yet, she's always hanging with a bunch of Cali comedians, in videos, on stage, etc., so maybe she just likes playing the straight man?

Oh definitely. The most animated she gets is in those pre-recorded comedy videos. I'm totally fine with this though, she's always been "cool".

Christgau agrees iirc

idk… i saw her a bunch between idk 2005-2010? and she was always funny and charming and her band was always tight. maybe it helps that a few of those were her christmas show…

I see you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDmoMaj96JI

Apparently was set to tour with Steely Dan this summer but, according to Mann's post/comic strip, dropped because (what's left of) the Dan are/have dicks:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CbL2UESJxhD/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=a0e9598f-8b30-41d9-9d67-ff12c7ad0073

I'll always love this quote:

I’ve listened to Can’t Buy a Thrill a thousand times. It’s just a perfect record. Steely Dan have very complicated chord changes, it’s very modal. They also have a really harmonic sensibility that’s not like anybody else’s. The music breaks for long, long solos—and I hate jamming, I hate solos. But I guess making people play 20 solos and then putting them together really pays off, because all of them feel like melodic parts of the song. And there’s something to their music where you can tell that those guys are assholes, but but they also sound like they fucked up in a way that feels familiar.

All is forgiven if Donald just tells me what Brooklyn is about. https://t.co/5zUTzIhIjt

— Aimee Mann (@aimeemann) March 17, 2022

Maybe she was dropped from the tour after Steely Dan heard that she referred to them as assholes

Did she?

It's two quotes up, part of a Pitchfork interview

Clicked through the tweet to Pitchfork and also to the instagram but didn't quite see the quote in question.

The "asshole" quote is under the Steely Dan entry in the Pitchfork interview above the tweet. The "female singer-songwriter" quote is from the comic.

Do Steely Dan not know they're assholes?

Oh, sorry! It was hiding there in plain sight, I can’t read this morning, too much time on ILX, you know the drill.

Do Steely Dan not know they're assholes?

They don't give a fuck about anybody else.

That may be the nicest way to call somebody an asshole that I have ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc2iLAubras

Response by Fagan (via a statement "shared with Pitchfork"):

Well, first of all, the idea that I would make any decision based on the gender of a performer is ridiculous. That’s something that would never even occur to me.

There was a communication problem on our end. I was misinformed as to how firm the commitment was to any particular opening act. And, although I have the greatest respect for Aimee as a writer and performer, I thought it might not be the best matchup in terms of musical style.

But I can’t pass the buck. I’ll take the blame for the screwup. I apologize for any distress this has caused Aimee and her fans.

Some of his best wives are female singer-songwriters.

The upside to this is that she can now do her own tour and people won't be forced to listen to Steely Dan in order to enjoy her performance.

Some of his best wives are female singer-songwriters.