 Aimee Mann Life is getting complicated when you have to rush home from riding around enjoying a CD to find a dictionary. OK, so I didn't know what a "gibbous moon" was, but does that make me the "last remains of the dodo"? According to Aimee Mann's Bachelor No. 2 perhaps it does. It couldn't be personal. I've never played the game of charm and satellite, committed a deathly act of kindness, wore hurbris like a medal, or let a woman use my decoder ring (well, just that one time, but she claimed to be an inspector from General Mills). That doesn't stop Mann from carving those offenses onto the male rap sheet with a journalist's brevity and a surgeon's deft knife. That we deserve this censure and more is beside the point. What the former Til' Tuesday singer and bassist does is worse still. She exposes us as superfluous (although I think most of the women I know are already in on that secret). On I'm With Stupid (I'm sure it was meant only in the nicest sort of way), we were objects of passionate scorn. Now, our love must be explained ("How Am I Different"), avoided ("Deathly"), or wearily endured ("Susan"). There's either no charity in us (The Elvis Costello collaboration "The Fall of The World's Own Optimist"), or we're dupes for other women ("Driving Sideways"). But at least we do provide a ready source of discussion for female bonding ("Susan" and "You Do"). Still, we forgive all these slights when Aimee comes around (far too infrequently). Although often too clever by half, this record has moments of breathtaking clarity and effortless melody. "Red Vines", for instance, lures you in with a simple intro, then mixes a great hook and a sentimental reading into something quite beautiful. "Ghost World" is three minutes of pure, hummable pop, but it gives the aimlessness of teenage life a dignity that shlock like "Dawson's Creek" could never portray. On "Susan" Mann's charming phrasings play with the lyrics and float above an infectious groove. It's her voice and she uses it that moves this record above indulgence into an aural treat. With one of the purest voices in pop since Karen Carpenter, Mann reaches for influences as diverse as Bacharach and Badfinger and has the intelligence to make the point almost every time. So, if she's so good, why haven't you heard of her? As she puts it in "Red Vines," "Everybody loves you, why should they not?" Well, apparently the answer for major record labels is because Mann isn't interested in what the powers that be thinks is necessary for success. Her devotion to melody and song structure are enough to frighten off MTV (Mindless, Thoughtless, Vacant), and still possessing her original teeth, hair, and unenhanced body parts she is ineligible for heavy rotation on VH1. So, let her expose us for the shallow human refuse we are. We may be dodos, but we still know a really fine record when we hear one.
Review by DTB |