It's Not Sam . . . It's The Beatles! (Sort Of)

The Good: Some great covers of songs by the Beatles
The Bad: Nothing explosively brilliant in the reinterpretations
The Basics: In a remarkably average musical outing, decent artists are paired with a song by The Beatles that will not challenge them and they rise to the occasion.


I remember watching and enjoying I Am Sam (reviewed here!), but truth be told, I do not recall anything especially wonderful about the soundtrack while the movie was going on. I mean, Batman Returns, The Last of the Mohicans and The Empire Strike Back all had soundtracks that had (at least moments) tracks that were instantly recognizable or truly resonated with me. So, as I've been looking up more music on some of my favorite artists (Heather Nova, Sarah McLachlan, etc.) I kept seeing "Music From And Inspired By The Motion Picture I Am Sam" coming up in my searches and I was a little surprised. It became something I figured I might as well pick up and give a spin.

With seventeen tracks, clocking in at 55 minutes, this album is a celebration of the music of The Beatles. Seventeen different artists each covered a different Beatles song. Truth be told, none of the tracks sparked a single memory from the movie, which as I understand used the cover versions of the Beatles songs because Michael Jackson was charging $300,000 for use of each original track. So, this review will instead focus on I Am Sam (the soundtrack album) as an album independent endeavor.

It's dull. It's not entirely bad or anything, but it is dull. All seventeen tracks are simply the individual artists singing songs by The Beatles. This is a special disappointment for me as a fan of Heather Nova. Heather Nova does a cover of Bruce Springsteen's classic "I'm On Fire" on her live album Wonderlust (reviewed here!). What makes her cover different from an artist simply singing another artist's song is that Nova makes the song her own, changing the gender of the subject of the song, changing the pace and basically reinterpreting or recreating the song. Perhaps the best cover song I've ever heard was Sophie B. Hawkins's reimagining of Bob Dylan's "I Want You" from her debut album (reviewed here!). It was such a profoundly different song that when I first heard Dylan's hokey honky-tonk original I was baffled. I said, "I recognize the words, but this song is terrible! What is it?!" Hawkins completely reimagines the song and she owns it. So profound is her version, she owns it!

There is nothing remotely close to that on I Am Sam. This is not so much artists "covering" the Beatles as they are singing the songs of the group. They don't interpret, they don't add their own flavor, they don't have the zest of the artist performing the song. So, for example, Eddie Vedder sings "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" and it doesn't push his range, it does not challenge him and he does not challenge it. He keeps it safe and Beatle-esque. Song after song, it's current artists singing Beatles songs. They aren't performing them, they're just singing them. Were I that Simon guy from "American Idol," I'd likely be more succinct and say "It's pure karaoke!"

And it is. All seventeen tracks are perfectly chosen to fit the artist who sings them. So, for example, "Blackbird" sounds perfectly natural coming from Sarah McLachlan and The Black Crowes singing "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" sounds like they've been singing it forever. Honestly, if Eddie Vedder was going to sing a song by The Beatles, "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" would have been one of the three I'd figure he would do and do well. If, that is, I was trying to match artists to a song they already sound like.

Even Heather Nova doing "We Can Work It Out" has the feel of fitting her range and ability. So, in short, I Am Sam has the songs, but it's nothing terribly new. One spin for the novelty of hearing the songs by the Beatles performed by artists you care about will likely do it for you.

The only real exception is Nick Cave singing "Let It Be." Cave does not make significant changes to the song, but he sings the song with his distinct baritone and sense of rhythm (he puts some stops in throughout the song that seem very much him). As I understand it, the European version has three additional tracks, including Cave singing George Harrison's "Here Comes The Sun." I would have liked to hear that.

But, as I said, this is a very safe album. This is Nick Cave singing "Let It Be," not "Octopus's Garden." This has Sheryl Crow singing "Mother Nature's Son," not They Might Be Giants covering "Yellow Submarine." It's a collection of safe songs performed safely by safe artists (how about a NIN - or Marliyn Manson - cover of "Revolution" or "Help!") and in that way, it's a serious disappointment. I'm not much of a fan of either NIN or Manson, but it strikes me that if one wants to hear something really covered, truly reinterpreted, you can't go with safe artists that fit the exact mold of the song you want played. And I Am Sam is all very safe pairings.

I pretty much never do this, but here's what the album consists of:
Aimee Mann and Michael Penn - "Two of Us"
Sarah McLachlan - "Blackbird"
Rufus Wainright - "Across The Universe"
The Wallflowers - "I'm Looking Through You"
Eddie Vedder - "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away"
Ben Harper - "Strawberry Fields Forever"
Sheryl Crow - "Mother Nature's Son"
Ben Folds - "Golden Slumbers"
The Vines - "I'm Only Sleeping"
Stereophonics - "Don't Let Me Down"
The Black Crowes - "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"
Chocolate Genius - "Julia"
Heather Nova - "We Can Work It Out"
Howie Day - "Help!"
Paul Westerberg - "Nowhere Man"
Grandaddy - "Revolution"
Nick Cave - "Let It Be"

If you are obsessed with any of those artists or any of those songs, that's who and what is on this album. The truth is, if you have a favorite artist on this list, odds are there is a way to legally download an individual track to get just the artist/song you want. It's probably a better investment than buying the album. That is, unless you like unremarkable karaoke of the Beatles.

Ironically, there's not a single Beatles cover by Oasis here (Oasis is always being compared in the media to the Beatles and has done several covers of Beatles songs), but then if there had been, I've a pretty good idea what track it would have been. The best song is "Let It Be" (sorry Heather!) and the low point is "Julia." I'm going to go cleanse my palate with Dar Williams's cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" (from My Better Self, reviewed here!) and try to remember what it's like when an artist takes a known work and does something surprising with it.

For other soundtrack reviews, please visit my takes on:
Watchmen 2-track single
Songs In The Key Of Springfield from The Simpsons
Dead Man Walking Soundtrack

5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Quirky Blend Of Bowling And Hostage Negotiations, The Big Lebowski Is Rightfully A Cult Classic!

The Good: Funny, Decent acting, Interesting characters
The Bad: Too often weird for the sake of weird (lack of purpose)
The Basics: Delightfully odd, The Big Lebowski is the film Thomas Pynchon would have made and has a visual style that helps define the greatness of the Coen Brothers.


I was clearly too young when I first watched The Big Lebowski. I know I saw it back after college, but I had no particular affinity (or even memory) of it. So, when the opportunity came for me to watch The Big Lebowski today, I leapt upon it. I think it might be ironic that the day I panned one of Thomas Pynchon’s latest novels, Against The Day (reviewed here!), the highest compliment I can give The Big Lebowski is that this film has a Pynchonesque quality to it. Thomas Pynchon is known for being quirky and meandering and in writing and directing The Big Lebowski, Joel and Ethan Coen create something distinctive that is the most Pynchonesque film I have yet seen.

Like a comedic, less violent version of Payback (reviewed here!), the Coen Brothers blend the story of a man looking for far, far less than others want or expect out of him (like Porter in Payback going through his ordeals for vastly less than most of the gangsters expect, the Dude is really just out to get his rug replaced in The Big Lebowski) with a ransom which may or may not be real. Including dream sequences, quirky characters, and surprisingly good characters, the only real problem with The Big Lebowski might well be that there are so many different collectible versions of the DVD/Blu-Ray and it is sometimes weird for the sake of being weird as opposed to being a cohesive story. It is, honestly, not much of a problem at all.

The Dude (Lebowski) returns home from buying half and half to get his face shoved in his toilet by thugs who demand to know where the money is. One of the thugs urinates on his rug and when they realize that he is not the millionaire that they are trying to shake down, they leave. Inspired by his bowling buddies, the Dude searches for the real Lebowski to get compensation for his rug getting urinated upon. After taking a rug from Lebowski’s house and going bowling (where his rule-bound friend, Walter, draws a gun on an opposing player), the Dude is summoned back to the Lebowski mansion.

Mr. Lebowski’s wife, Bunny, has been kidnapped and Lebowski wants the Dude to act as a courier for the ransom. When talking with Walter, the Dude posits that the rich girl has not even been kidnapped, which Walter decides must be true. Walter throws a false bag – without the ransom money – to the kidnappers, queering the deal. The Dude quickly finds himself threatened by Lebowski, Lebowski’s daughter (who is older than his new wife), a pornographer who Bunny owes money to and, in a completely different context, a pedophilic bowler named Jesus. In hunting down the money, which has been stolen, the Dude is tailed, menaces a fifteen year old and does battle with corrupt cops.

Like a Pynchon novel, The Big Lebowski is populated by ridiculous characters who represent archetypes and agendas that allow the ridiculous plot and plot turns to seem entirely plausible. The Dude is a former hippie, conscientious objector, whose big accomplishment is being an occasional bowler. He essentially becomes a detective due to the apparently wealthy Lebowski and works for a cut off three different people with agendas for the return of Bunny Lebowski. Walter is a psychopath who claims to observe the Sabbath and plays up his status as a veteran.

Thugs and nihilists go up against the Dude and Walter in a caper that includes ransom demands when there is no hostage, a person who cuts off a toe, and a fight that involves one man biting off another man’s ear. Impressively directed by Joel (and, in an uncredited capacity, Ethan) Coen, The Big Lebowski includes dream sequences complete with big dance numbers that have a trippy feeling that is fun to watch. In fact, outside David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (reviewed here!), it is hard to recall a film that so purely captures the blend of drug trips, reality, and dreams as The Big Lebowski. Unlike something like Mulholland Drive, though, The Big Lebowski actually tells a story and in that way, it makes for a eminently satisfying film.

In other words, outside the simple visual styling and the quirky characters, The Big Lebowski is enjoyable because things happen and there is a story to be pieced together. Like the best of Pynchon’s novels, there is substance and themes in The Big Lebowski presented in a way that has a sense of poetry. It is easy to see how the film became a cult classic.

Julianne Moore has a wonderful supporting performance as Maude Lebowski, where she is unlike any other performance she has had. Similarly, the exceptionally brief appearance by John Turturro as Jesus (who the previews might make one suspect has a substantial role in the film) performs with a wonderful sense of physical comedy, a looseness that makes him ridiculous in a way that he plays nowhere else. Steve Buscemi (Donny, the other bowling partner of the Dude), David Huddleston (Lebowski), and Philip Seymour Hoffman all have decent supporting roles that help play off the ridiculousness of Jeff Bridges as the Dude.

John Goodman is predictably wonderful as Walter. The real surprise, though, is Jeff Bridges as the Dude. Bridges, who frequently takes serious roles where he is able to play dignified, is incredible as the slacker, the Dude. Slouching through most of the movie, he presents the character as smart, but also incredibly able to reason at key moments and makes the whole role seem plausible. Bridges has a great physical presence and his expressions of surprise and disappointment are well-played.

The Big Lebowski is funny, clever, and well-presented and well worth watching for anyone who has an appetite for quirky and surprisingly smart.

For other works with Sam Elliott, check out my reviews of:
Marmaduke
Did You Hear About The Morgans?
Ghost Rider
Thank You For Smoking
Hulk

9/10

For other film reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Despite Some Repetitive Lines, @#%&*! Smilers Is One Of Aimee Mann's Best Albums!

The Good: Decent vocals, Good instrumental accompaniment, Some insightful lyrics, Decent production
The Bad: Short, Some repetitive lyrics
The Basics: Despite being short and somewhat repetitive, @#%&*! Smilers is arguably Aimee Mann's best album in years.


When I finished up with Aimee Mann as my Artist Of The Month back in May, I had the good fortune to end with her last album (at the time) @#%&*! Smilers and for it, I have to say this is probably the album I have waited for from Mann for the bulk of my listening to her works. Aimee Mann started out creatively, if a bit poppish in 'Til Tuesday and after she left that band, it seemed like she struggled to find her sound or - once she found it - stayed in a rut for a while. With @#%&*! Smilers she is out of her rut and creating new music that sounds fresh, interesting and good, even if it is a bit repetitive.

Indeed, the two biggest problems with @#%&*! Smilers come from the album's replayability. The album is short, which is always a black mark against c.d.s from talented artists because one has to assume if they are smart and creative enough to write their own works, they can fill out the capacity of a c.d. a bit better. On @#%&*! Smilers that problem is exacerbated some by the fact that the album is frontloaded with the catchiest tunes which rely on either one-line concepts or heavy repetition of the refrain (or both).

With only 13 tracks occupying 45:51 on c.d., @#%&*! Smilers is a concept album in grumpiness and loneliness from Aimee Mann. Mann, true to form, wrote eleven of the songs and co-wrote the final two. She provides all of the lead vocals (though there is a guest vocalist who performs "Ballantines" with her as a duet) and she plays the acoustic guitar on most every track. Mann is not involved in the production aspect of the album, though her bassist was the producer and it is hard to imagine Mann would have used him and kept him on if she was unhappy with how he was producing. In other words, this is very much the creative endeavor of Aimee Mann.

And what an endeavor it is! On @#%&*! Smilers Aimee Mann leans more toward the rock spectrum of pop-rock with songs like "Freeway" and "31 Today." She has her trademark pop ballads in "Columbus Avenue" and even ventures into a musing, light pop place for "Stranger Into Starman." What is so instrumentally significant about @#%&*! Smilers is that Mann returns to a creative place on the album where she is able to make songs that do not sound like either the traditional guitar/bass/drums or keyboard (piano)/bass/drums sound that she has been mired in for a few albums. The result is an album that has surprisingly catchy, memorable tunes which actually rock.

On @#%&*! Smilers Mann gets instrumentally creative and part of that comes from broadening the instruments used on her tracks. After a period where she pretty much defined herself through an orchestral rock sound, Mann spreads her creative wings. "Borrowing Time" has a distinctive sound because of the presence of the Moog synthesizer and use of horns on several tracks infuses the songs with a very different flavor from the mundane pop rock sound Mann and many other musical artists have become mired in. Even "Little Tornado" sounds distinct arguably because of the whistling in it.

Vocally, Aimee Mann is at the top of her game on @#%&*! Smilers. She comes on strong with vocal force on "Freeway," but is able to mellow and coo in quiet sopranic tones elsewhere on the album. Mann continues to illustrate her vocal range track by track without jumping registers on individual songs. Even so, it is hard not to like the results of many of her efforts. @#%&*! Smilers is a vocally beautiful album and every line Mann sings is clear and crisp. I tend to like albums where the lyrics may be easily understood, so it is a pleasure to listen to this album for that reason.

Thematically, the album is a bit darker. @#%&*! Smilers leans toward the depressed and depressing. With lines like "Here on the boulevard, you were the golden boy, / A mix of brains and muscle / That was a lucky break, / Luck is a thing you make, / Not just another hustle / But you sit there in the darkness, / And you make plans but they're hopeless, / And you blame God when you're lonely, / And you'll call it fate, when you show up too late and it's over" ("It's Over"), it is hard to get pepped up by this album. In this fashion, Aimee Mann avoids sounding like she is producing bubblegum pop.

But what I found myself respecting Mann for most on @#%&*! Smilers was how she takes simple rhymes and actually makes them work well for her. From the very first time I heard her song "31 Today," I wanted to criticize it for being too simple. However, the song isn't "too" simple, it uses a perfect economy of language and rhymes to say exactly what it intends to. I have frequently found her lines "I thought my life would be different somehow / I thought my life would be better by now / But it's not and / I don't know where to turn" ("31 Today") to be caught in my head and it is hard not to groove to it the way she performs the lines.

Unfortunately for Mann, her own cleverness drags down the album. Early on on the album there are songs which have clever lines that are smart, insightful and different, but the song feels belabored around the single line. So when Mann sings "You've got a lot of money but you can't afford the freeway" ("Freeway") the point is made: the rest of the song is just filler around that line. Sure, it sounds good, but it replays poorly and the one line becomes tiresome. The song might not be so noticeable for the flaw were it not for the fact that "Stranger Into Starman" which follows it suffers the same problem and is a less engaging song.

This, however, is not nearly enough to not recommend @#%&*! Smilers to anyone who likes pop-rock music or strong female vocalists. For anyone who likes pop-rock that does not sound like what is on the radio currently, Aimee Mann's @#%&*! Smilers is enough to make one wish they could hear music of this caliber over the airwaves.

For other works by ‘Til Tuesday and/or Aimee Mann, please check out my reviews of:
Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday
Welcome Home - 'Til Tuesday
Coming Up Close: A Retrospective - 'Til Tuesday
Whatever
I'm With Stupid
Magnolia Soundtrack
Ultimate Collection
Lost In Space
The Forgotten Arm
One More Drifter In The Snow

7.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Not At All The Ultimate Collection, Aimee Mann's First Compilation Leaves Fans Wanting.

The Good: Good songs, Decent vocals, Fine lyrics, Duration
The Bad: Missing plenty of good songs, Mann's career is nowhere near over
The Basics: A disappointing compilation lacking some of Mann's best - or most memorable works, Ultimate Collection may be passed by.


Rather infrequently, I find myself listening to a compilation album where the artist being featured seems to have made the compilation album far too soon in their career for my liking. After all, there are plenty of musical artists who do not know when to bow out, but arguably an equal number who are so prolific that when they get to a "Best of," "Greatest Hits" or similar album, the listener is left scratching their head and saying "why now?!" In the case of Aimee Mann, I'm there with her album Ultimate Collection.

Ultimate Collection seems to have come after Mann's first four studio albums (including the Magnolia soundtrack) and given that she had at least three more albums after, that just seems too soon. After all, any true "Ultimate" collection for an artist has to come after the artist is done producing new works. Even Bob Dylan's new albums have a song or two that rocks with meaning! So, my first gripe with Aimee Mann's Ultimate Collection is that it implies the artist has stopped producing or none of her new stuff is worth comparing to the older works. Given that "Sign Of Love" from 'Til Tuesday made it into this compilation, there is no way that that may be true!

With 20 songs clocking out at 85:30, Ultimate Collection is a decent representative sample of the works of Aimee Mann. Mann wrote nine of the songs by herself and only three of the songs are cover songs, so her creative influence from the concepts of the songs through their final executions is pretty impressive. Mann provides the lead vocals for all of the songs, including the ones from 'Til Tuesday. As well, Aimee Mann plays several musical instruments on the tracks, often playing more than one instrument on an individual track. Mann's only glaring creative omission is from the production aspect of the album. Aimee Mann was not involved in the production of any of the songs. Even so, because so many of them were produced by her frequent co-writer Jon Brion, it is hard to argue that Mann did not get the results she wanted.

And those results, compiled here, are a generally mellow grouping of pop-rock songs with more emphasis on pop than rock. Despite Mann's use of guitars in her solo career, much of her sound on this album is actually the sound of keyboards and bass (like on her 'Til Tuesday song "Voices Carry") or a more orchestral sound, as on "Wise Up" and "Jacob Marley's Chains." While there are less-produced tracks, like the live version of "The Other End (Of The Telescope)," most of the songs are musically rich with a stronger instrumental influence. So, for example, Mann opens with the playfully poppy "That's Just What You Are," which has a singsong tune and rise and fall of the instrumentation that makes it almost surprising it was never a mainstream hit.

Vocally, Aimee Mann is a woman who has surprisingly good range, but she tends to play only within one register in each song. So, for example, she is beautifully sopranic on "Jacob Marley's Chains," which makes the song haunting and heartwrenching, but she goes dusky and lower on "You're With Stupid Now." The result is that she plays to the mood of each song expertly, but few of her songs explode with real emotional or vocal range. Thus, despite writing some exceptionally operatic tracks, none of the songs on this album have the operatic range and feel.

Part of the problem with the range comes from the lyrics as well. I listened to "Baby Blue" with such disgust as I heard Mann's voice go through the singsong rhymes "All those days became so long / Did you really think I’d do you wrong / Dixie, when I let you go / Thought you’d realize that I would know / I would show . . ." Fortunately for fans of Aimee Mann, “Baby Blue” is the exception to the rule on this album and one of the songs not written by Mann!

Indeed, Aimee Mann has an almost Folk sensibility to her singing and songwriting. She tells little musical storysongs on several of the songs and they have clear meanings about human relationships. She even manages to slip in some serious irony with her lines like "He's infinitely wise / But he infinitely lies / We're no longer just plain folks / No, we're old and sad and bored / And we're not funny anymore / We're like Jimmy Hoffa Jokes" ("Jimmy Hoffa Jokes"). Mann expertly weaves songs together that focus on loss or death in relationships while making broader pop culture references that still pop today.

But ultimately what makes Aimee Mann's lyrics work so well is that she is poetic about the most powerful human emotions: love and loss. When Aimee Mann sings "Skip the cloak and dagger bit / Don't you know we're sick of it / As much as I would like to stay / The message light just blinks away / And while I'm here you won't push play / So you leave me no choice in the matter . . . You leave me no / Option to indulge in this / Exercise in cowardice / Ignorance without the bliss" ("Choice In The Matter") it is hard for anyone who has suffered through a tough break-up to not feel torn up by the words.

Unfortunately, some of the songs, like "Sign Of Love" are just terribly repetitive and a boatload of worthy tracks were omitted. So, while Mann's career is not over, the career she had when this compilation was made was still not presented as well as it ought to have been. As a result, fans will truly want to wait for the real ultimate collection which might come in about twenty more years when Aimee Mann is done making music.

The best track is "Wise Up," the low point is "Sign Of Love."

For other works by ‘Til Tuesday and/or Aimee Mann, please check out my reviews of:
Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday
Welcome Home - 'Til Tuesday
Coming Up Close: A Retrospective - 'Til Tuesday
Whatever
I'm With Stupid
Magnolia Soundtrack
Lost In Space
The Forgotten Arm
One More Drifter In The Snow

5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Aimee Mann's The Forgotten Arm Might Be A Clever Concept Album, But It Sounds Familiar.

The Good: Wonderful lyrics, Good vocals, Good concept
The Bad: Instrumentally derivative of other works, Short!
The Basics: A decent album, The Forgotten Arm is dragged down by the fact that it is too much like other Aimee Mann works.


When I had Aimee Mann as my Artist Of The Month, I started with the Magnolia soundtrack and the 'Til Tuesday album Voices Carry. Unfortunately, I found myself crippled by foreknowledge. Actually, my prior experiences with Aimee Mann's works did not adversely effect my listening to her album The Forgotten Arm. As it turns out, The Forgotten Arm came after the Magnolia Soundtrack and thus, my main criticism of the album holds.

The Forgotten Arm is a concept album about suffering in relationships (not at all new territory for Mann or her listeners) but musically, the album is almost entirely derivative of other works that she had written and produced. On multiple songs on this album, I thought I was listening to "You Do" or "Driving Sideways" from Magnolia. In other words, while there might be new poetry on this album, music lovers will not find anything terribly original sounding on The Forgotten Arm.

With a dozen songs occupying 47:11, The Forgotten Arm is a work by Aimee Mann which is very much her musical vision. Mann wrote all of the songs and provided the lead vocals for each and every track. She also plays guitars - electric and acoustic - on several songs. She was not involved in the production of the album, but she seems to like the songs and how the album turned out, so it does seem to be her musical vision at the time which is represented here.

Instrumentally, though, The Forgotten Arm is a complete strikeout. Mann sings in front of keyboard and guitar-driven tracks which have a ridiculously familiar sound to them. Mann overcomes the whole "one woman and a piano" sound by having "one woman, a piano and a guitar," but within those confines, she has little variety, at least on The Forgotten Arm. After several spinnings of the album, I was astonished how none of the songs stood out and sounded truly different. Every song on the album is mellow, melodic, but utterly indistinct. This lends well for the album, but not for making any of the tracks sound interesting. Instead, the album is one monotonous, pain-filled album which is murky and musical but utterly forgettable.

That said, it is hard to fault Mann's vocals for the album being uninteresting. Aimee Mann has an amazing soprano voice which she uses to sing clear and high on each and every song. She is an able vocalist whose tones are clear and she is able to enunciate even as she soars upward in the registers. But again, Mann does nothing on The Forgotten Arm that listeners to her works have not heard on other Aimee Mann works. This is especially disappointing when one considers how few works by Mann I've heard. Even with only two albums prior to this having been studied by me, Aimee Mann illustrates a terribly repetitive quality which is disappointing in every way. At least her vocals are clear and natural and illustrate a true vocal talent.

Lyrically, The Forgotten Arm shines, at least as much as an album about the unforgiving natures of life and love can shine. Mann is a gifted poet and this concept album is a musical story that progresses with the characters getting more and more miserable as the album goes on. Mann has a knack for writing painful descriptions of relationships as she does when she writes "Something isn't right - I don't know how I know; / But baby, it's despite your dog and pony show. / I can hear it coming - you're only going through the motions, baby; / With your engines humming, you're just going through the motions, baby. / I feel like I'm in jail with you and Mr. Hyde / (a guy who leaves a trail about a mile wide)" ("Going Through The Motions"). Mann has a great poetic voice for loneliness and despair, which is what many of the songs on The Forgotten Arm are about.

Indeed, one of the best weapons in Mann's arsenal is a keen use of imagery. When she sings "Life just kind of empties out, / Less a deluge than a drought, / Less a giant mushroom cloud than an unexploded shell inside a cell of the Lennox Hotel" ("Little Bombs") it is hard not to get chills. Mann is a master of comparative imagery doing what great poets ought when she ties the external world to the internal one.

In fact, the only problem with any of the lyrics is a sense of repetition. Songs like "That's How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart" and "The King Of The Jailhouse" are plagued by lines that are too oft repeated. Indeed, there are only so many times one may hear "It'll tell you a secret I don't even know (baby, there's something wrong with me)" ("The King Of The Jailhouse") before one wants Mann to move on and say something new.

That said, the biggest strikes against The Forgotten Arm are that the album is short and nothing sounds terribly new on it. This is enough to drag it down in the academic rating, but not enough to make me not want to recommend it to listeners. Even repetitive, indistinct Aimee Mann is better than many other artists on the market today!

The best track is "Going Through The Motions," the low point is "Video."

For other works by ‘Til Tuesday and/or Aimee Mann, please check out my reviews of:
Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday
Welcome Home - 'Til Tuesday
Coming Up Close: A Retrospective - 'Til Tuesday
Whatever
I'm With Stupid
Magnolia Soundtrack
Lost In Space
One More Drifter In The Snow

7/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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One More Drifter In The Snow: One More Christmas Album More People Ought To Have!

The Good: Good vocals, Musically mellow and good, Original songs are decent
The Bad: SHORT!
The Basics: Despite being dreadfully short, there is just enough to One More Drifter In The Snow to recommend it to Aimee Mann and Christmas fans!


For those who do not follow my many music reviews, one of my serious peeves is Christmas albums. I tend to find them to be a waste of time and money as they have a limited window where most people will actually listen to them and even great artists tend to do remarkably little with Christmas albums that have not been done before innumerable times. Yes, I tend to take the grinchy position that Christmas albums are largely a cashgrab by performers and artists who usually have too much integrity for such things. I mention this at the outset of my review of One More Drifter In The Snow because this is actually one of the few Christmas or holiday themed albums I enjoyed enough to recommend. That said, in the pantheon of all music it is still not a great album and it has several flaws I loathe.

On One More Drifter In The Snow, Aimee Mann presents traditional and popular Christmas songs alongside two new tracks, one of which was written by her. The album is alternately fun - "You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch" - and somber ("I'll Be Home For Christmas") and above all the album is short. Like most Christmas albums, Aimee Mann's holiday endeavor loses serious points by simple virtue that she makes none of the songs her own (except the two which she is the creator and first performer of). Once you've heard one soprano with a guitar or piano sing "The Christmas Song" or "White Christmas," truly you've pretty much heard them all.

With only ten songs occupying exactly thirty-three minutes, One More Drifter In The Snow is mostly a Christmas cover album. Mann co-wrote "Calling On Mary" and her husband, Michael Penn wrote "Christmastime." The other songs are covers like "Winter Wonderland" or the traditional "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." The album is largely presented with a nonsecular (Christian) bent, though they are presented with a mellow light rock sound as opposed to a choir sound. Aimee Mann provides all of the lead vocals, though in "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch," she is accompanied for the storytelling portion by Grant Lee Phillips. Aimee Mann did not produce the album, though she does play acoustic guitar on it while singing.

Instrumentally, One More Drifter In The Snow is very much a piano and acoustic guitar album with minimal percussion accenting the melodies. The songs are generally recognizable renditions of popular and traditional favorites. Mann keeps the instrumental accompaniment in its place, accenting the vocals and she does nothing audacious with the songs. In other words, these are Christmas songs that sound like one might remember them from other light rock artists. She is not trying to reinvent the wheel or make any of the songs distinctly her own. On "Christmastime," the organ and guitar are mellow pop and on "Calling On Mary," the instrumental accompaniment is so muted that it is almost forgettable.

Vocally, Aimee Mann proves her worth yet again as an incredible soprano who clearly can sing. She makes every line she sings clear and clean and her notes are beautiful and articulate, exactly what one might expect from a soprano who is releasing a Christmas album. Aimee Mann delivers vocally with her trademark intensity and the album is easy to listen to, even if it does have a more somber sound than many other artist's albums.

As for the writing, Mann's unique song is very much a new Christmas song, not a generic holiday song. She creates an appropriately singsong rhyme scheme which is easily memorable when she sings "I searched the skyline for a star / Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas / And baby I wondered where you are / Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas / 'Cause comfort's not possible when / You look past the joy to the end / Calling on Mary is voluntary / Unless you're alone like me / If there's a star above, then it can look like love / When they light up the Christmas tree" ("Calling On Mary"). The song continues Mann's recurring theme of loneliness and alienation and she does it quite well. However, like most Christmas songs, she ends with a sense of hope and that makes it more than just a Christmastime suicide anthem.

Ultimately, there is enough on One More Drifter In The Snow for holiday enthusiasts to hear that does not seem instantly familiar to them, which is pretty much what I look for in Christmas albums these days. Mann does not showboat, she just presents and the songs work because of that. Anyone looking for a truly different, mellow pop Christmas album will find it in One More Drifter In The Snow.

The best track is "Christmastime," the low point is "Whatever Happened To Christmas," which opens the album in a mediocre fashion.

For other works by ‘Til Tuesday and/or Aimee Mann, please check out my reviews of:
Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday
Welcome Home - 'Til Tuesday
Coming Up Close: A Retrospective - 'Til Tuesday
Whatever
I'm With Stupid
Magnolia Soundtrack
Lost In Space

6/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Utterly Forgettable: Lost In Space By Aimee Mann Is An Unfortunate Flop.

The Good: Good lyrics, Vocals are nice
The Bad: Absolutely no hook, Short, Instrumentally indistinct
The Basics: One of the weakest albums Aimee Mann ever produced, Lost In Space disappoints.


This past summer, I was working quite a bit in my car as I enumerated for the Census Bureau and that meant I had a chance to listen to more music than usual. That was a great thing for me. Alas, however, when I am plagued with albums which offer me nothing terribly exciting at all to listen to, such prolonged repeated listens are torture. This is where I fell on Lost In Space by Aimee Mann, an album I listened to eight times yesterday alone and the truth is it was so unremarkable that not one track sticks out in my mind, even after such an intense period of repetition. This never bodes well for an artist and truth be told, I am miffed that others have found so much to praise from this otherwise unremarkable album.

Aimee Mann is an artist whose works I have generally been enjoying, so much so that I’ve been surprised when I have heard a song by her on one of her albums and then learned she never attempted to release it as a single. Her song “Superball,” for example, is exactly the type of catchy pop number I would have thought would have worked wonders for Mann’s popular career. It has a hook, it is catchy, it is interesting, even if it is not terribly deep. There is no song like “Superball” on Lost In Space and instead the album falls down because there is nothing so distinctive. Instead, this is a gloomy album that has a fairly monotonal sound and when it comes to my usual habit of picking my favorite track, I almost feel like a tool picking “Pavlov’s Bell,” (it was featured on Buffy The Vampire Slayer) but the song is clever and that sets it apart from the rest of the album.

With only eleven tracks occupying 43:03 on the single c.d. version, Lost In Space is very much the result of Aimee Mann’s creative vision. Mann wrote nine of the songs and co-wrote the other two. She provides the lead vocals on each track and she plays all sorts of instruments on the album, from bass and guitar to the drums. The only creative aspect she was not involved in was the production of the album. It is hard to argue, given that she released it on her own label, that this was not the sound she wanted for herself.

Sadly, this is where Lost In Space falls down completely. The album is instrumentally arguably the dullest work Aimee Mann has ever produced. The songs are very mundane guitar, bass, drum tracks with little variation. My wife is constantly on me about the music I listen to and how it is almost all “chicks with guitars.” Sadly, with Lost In Space, I have little to combat her viewpoint with. That is exactly the sound Aimee Mann is creating with this album. The songs are all murky pop-rock songs that have no real catch or melody to them that is incredible or distinguished. I couldn’t hum a single tune from this album even after all the times I’ve listened to it (save “Pavlov’s Bell,” which is essentially a bass-driven dirge).

The lack of creativity seeps into Mann’s vocals on the album as well. Mann has a beautiful soprano voice and on this album she stays pretty much safely in that range. Where she vocally distinguishes herself is that she has a way of performing her songs where it sounds like she is whispering through them and yet she carries the melodies musically and that level of expressionism is uncommon in pop music, certainly today.

Lyrically, Aimee Mann is a clever poet. She writes with an intelligence that is uncommon in pop-rock music and she infuses a dark humor into many of her lines. When she sings “Because nobody knows, / That's how I nearly fell, / Trading clothes / And ringing Pavlov's Bell. / History shows / There's not a chance in hell. / But, oh, Mario, we're only to Ohio. / It's kinda getting harder to breathe. / I won't let it show, / I'm all about denial / But can't denial let me believe” (“Pavlov’s Bell”) it is hard not to get a chill down one’s spine. Mann sings with an eerie clarity and her lines are psychologically engaging and very different from other artists on the market.

However, even when Mann is being clever, she is sometimes forced to rely on very banal rhyme schemes. Like many artists, she sings about love and loss and Lost in Space is chock full of songs on the topic. On some of the songs, like “Invisible Ink,” she ends up sounding less smart and more like she is stretching for the right rhyme. Her lines “There comes a time when you swim or sink / So I jumped in the drink / Cuz I couldn't make myself clear / Maybe I wrote in invisible ink / Oh I've tried to think / How I could have made it appear / But another illustration is wasted / Cuz the results are the same / I feel like a ghost who's trying to move your hands / over some ouija board in the hopes I can spell out my name” (“Invisible Ink”) are not as original or poetic as they are rhyming.

Still, Mann does have something to say and she says it generally well. Some of her songs are little storysongs and they work well. Mann uncommonly explores obsession with “The Moth” when she wrote “The Moth don't care if The Flame is real, / 'Cause Flame and Moth got a sweetheart deal. / And nothing fuels a good flirtation, / Like Need and Anger and Desperation... / No, The Moth don't care if The Flame is real” and that song works very well on the page.

Sadly, Lost In Space works better as a book of poetry than as an album or concept album. Because the music is nothing terribly fresh or original sounding, it is impossible for me to recommend it and I suspect outside the loyal fanbase there is no surprise why this album did not do stellar.

The best track is “Pavlov’s Bell,” the low point is “This Is How It Goes.”

For other works by ‘Til Tuesday and/or Aimee Mann, please check out my reviews of:
Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday
Welcome Home - 'Til Tuesday
Coming Up Close: A Retrospective - 'Til Tuesday
Whatever
I'm With Stupid
Magnolia Soundtrack

5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Whatever Is Nothing To Be Ambivalent About: It Might Just Be Aimee Mann's Magnum Opus!

The Good: Good vocals, Instrumentally diverse, Generally decent lyrics
The Bad: A little lighter on the duration than I would like.
The Bottom Line: A very strong album that replays exceptionally well, Whatever may well be the best Aimee Mann c.d. I've yet heard!


When I made Aimee Mann my Artist Of The Month, I found myself overwhelmed by Aimee Mann albums to listen to and as I've drove around for several days for my job, I was listening to Mann's album Whatever on pretty heavy rotation. Initially, I was more neutral to the album, but the longer I listened to the album and the better I could hear it on my car speakers, the more I enjoyed the work. The reason for that is simple: on Whatever, Aimee Mann excels as a composer and her lyrics are sharp and interesting. Despite a few very predictable rhyme schemes, Whatever is a surprisingly engaging album.

My partner's big objection with many female singer-songwriters is that a lot of them take up either a very limited rockin' position or they fall in with the "one woman and a piano" sound which she finds limiting. On Whatever, Aimee Mann leaps out of that otherwise problematic potential set of niches by exploring a very large array of musical sounds and styles, which is a trait common with many of the best female singer-songwriters. Regardless of where Aimee Mann went afterward, on Whatever, she is an artist with a surprising array of lyrical and musical diversity.

With fourteen tracks (the last one being only a nine second blip), clocking out at almost fifty-three minutes worth of music, Whatever is very much the musical vision of Aimee Mann. Mann wrote all of the lyrics - though she co-wrote "Stupid Thing," "Say Anything," and "I Know There's A Word" with Jon Brion, who produced most of the tracks on the album. Mann wrote most of the musical accompaniment as well and she plays several musical instruments - electric guitar, bass, dixie cup (I kid not!), acoustic guitar, pump organ, mellotron, percussion, and nylon string guitar - on almost every track. She provides all of the lead vocals and it is clear, despite the album not having a production credit for her, that this was the music she intended to make, especially at the time.

What the music is is a truly alternative form of pop-rock. While there are songs that rock ("Could've Been Anyone," "Say Anything"), many of the songs move toward pop either pop-rock ("Put Me On Top") or pop ballads, like the haunting acoustic pop "Jacob Marley's Chain." But what makes Whatever such a surprisingly good album is that the songs are not traditional guitar, bass, drums or piano, bass, drums pop music. Instead, Mann mixes things up with songs like "Mr. Harris" which has a very orchestral instrumental accompaniment to it. After all, how many pop artists employ the oboe? The song sounds truly different because it is and Mann's broader sense of the musical world is clearly displayed in her songs on this album.

Vocally, Aimee Mann is very feminine on the album with many of her songs utilizing her extraordinary soprano voice. She shows her range on "Stupid Things" where she goes a little lower - into the alto range - before soaring to sopranic heights. She also manages to make her vocals sound delightfully strained and emotional. On "Jacob Marley's Chain," she becomes quieter and haunting while on "Fifty Years After The Fair" there are moments she sounds positively bubbly. Above all, she is articulate and her lyrics may be very clearly understood.

On Whatever, Aimee Mann presents songs that leap between being musical story-songs ("Mr. Harris") and emotional rallies ("I Know There's A Word"). She even goes for direct social commentary on songs like "4th Of July." What makes her songs so generally good is that Aimee Mann is an able poet. When she sings "Today's the fourth of July / Another June has gone by / And when they light up our town I just think / What a waste of gunpowder and sky / I'm certain that I am alone / In harbouring thoughts of our home / It's one of my faults that I can't quell my past / I ought to have gotten it gone" ("4th Of July") it is clear she has both something to say and an uncommon way of saying it.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Whatever was the passion with which Mann wrote her lyrics. She creates one of the most memorable and wrenching songs with "Stupid Thing." The way she presents her lines "Oh, you stupid thing / Speaking of course as your dear departed / Oh, you stupid thing / It wasn't me that you outsmarted, / You stupid thing / Stopping it all before it even started / I bet you knew it would come / That's just like you, to sit back / And just play it dumb / One word of warning would help / But that sacrifice was made / Trying to save yourself" ("Stupid Thing") in front of soaring and falling instrumental accompaniment, she is able to state and connote such passion. Her rhyme scheme for the song works because she expresses such a powerful human emotion in her lines.

Not all of the songs are gold, though and largely that comes from her repetition within some of the songs. For example, the way she belabors the title in "I Know There's A Word" with her repetitions: "I know there's a word for this / I know there's a word for the way I'm feeling / I know there's a word for this / I know it, and it's on the tip of my tongue / And it won't go any further" almost insult the intelligence of the listener.

That said, one of the nicest aspects of Whatever is that the songs are musically rich and well-written and performed, which makes them smarter than most pop-rock right off the bat. "Whatever" finally justifies the faith listeners might have had in Aimee Mann's potential musical career. I know I finally feel like I am not wasting my time with listening to her works when I replay this album!

The best song is "Stupid Thing," the low point is "I've Had It" (which is more unmemorable than bad).

For other works by ‘Til Tuesday and/or Aimee Mann, please check out my reviews of:
Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday
Welcome Home - 'Til Tuesday
Coming Up Close: A Retrospective - 'Til Tuesday
I'm With Stupid
Magnolia Soundtrack

8/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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If You Need One ‘Til Tuesday C.D., It Might As Well Be Coming Up Close.

The Good: Duration, Lyrics, Some catchy tunes
The Bad: Vocally and instrumentally repetitive
The Basics: A very average compilation by a very average 1980s pop band, Coming Up Close: A Retrospective is still satisfying to those who like ‘Til Tuesday or Aimee Mann.


As part of my monthlong exploration of Aimee Mann, I found myself driving along listening to Coming Up Close: A Retrospective from Mann’s first big band, ‘Til Tuesday. The 1980s pop band was best known for the song “Voices Carry” and while I’ve heard two of their three albums, the song “Voices Carry” has largely been the most distinct and interesting song by them I’ve heard. However, repetition does a lot for me and the more I listened to Coming Up Close: A Retrospective, the more I actually came to enjoy both the album and some of the other tracks.

At the same time, though, I found myself feeling like I was not missing anything. In other words, the songs on Coming Up Close are truly the best the band ‘Til Tuesday ever did and if you only have to have one album by the group this is easily it.

With sixteen songs occupying over an hour of music on a single compact disc, Coming Up Close is very much the work of the band ‘Til Tuesday, mostly from the creative bent of Aimee Mann. Mann wrote eight of the songs and co-wrote the other eight with members of the band or outside writers (depending on the track). Mann provides the lead vocals on every track as well as playing the bass and (occasionally) acoustic guitar. She is accompanied on drums, guitars and keyboards by Michael Hausman, Robert Holmes, and Joey Pesce, who made up the band. The band even produced a couple of the songs on the album, most notably the new song “Do It Again.” In other words, this is the musical vision of the band as it was in the 1980s.

The sound of ‘Til Tuesday is “New Wave,” which seems to be best defined as the keyboard and guitar driven pop music that came out around the same time as punk and offered a mainstream alternative to that musical movement. The songs have a generally articulate quality to them, but are limited by the instrumental accompaniment in some ways. The keyboard driven ballads begin to blend together in the middle (I’ll find myself humming the tune to “David Denies,” but singing “Coming Up Close” to it!). The songs have a number of dramatic swells and falls, are not entirely danceable, but have a flavor to them that helped define '80's pop music. Sadly, this also makes the songs sound tragically dated in many ways.

What is distinct about ‘Til Tuesday on this retrospective are the vocals of Aimee Mann. Mann has a soprano voice which is beautiful and has more range than most singers of the time. So, unlike songs by – for example – The Bangles, Mann goes lower on several songs as well as to the upper limits of her range. The result is that the songs do not sound bubblegum pop on every track and she is able to connote a greater emotional range than many of her contemporaries. Still, on some of the tracks – like the beginning to “Coming Up Close” – Mann is produced under the instrumental accompaniment, so she can barely be understood.

‘Til Tuesday is largely driven by the lyrics of Aimee Mann and Mann tends to like songs about emotional conflict. She is an able songwriter, though and on many of her songs, she writes musical storysongs in an almost Folk tradition. So, for example, her song “David Denies” has a protagonist with a conflict and an emotional journey which she presents: “He cannot work he cannot think / Beyond the guilt he has for leaving her alone / I'm going down I cannot breathe / He doesn't think to leave me anything at all / David denies that he'll ever change his mind.” And the song works because the vocals are presented so they may be clearly heard over the sweeps and swells of the guitars and keyboards.

Mann’s lyrics also tend to illustrate how good she is as a poet. Aimee Mann has an excellent sense of imagery in many of her songs which makes them distinct from other pop music, especially of the time. When Mann sings “There was a time not long ago / I dreamt that the world was flat / And all the colours bled away / And that was that / And in time, I could only believe in one thing / The sky was just phosphourus stars hung on strings / And you swore that they'd always be mine / When you can pull them down anytime” (“The Other End (Of The Telescope)”) she paints a pretty incredible picture in the mind’s eye of the listener and that works beautifully for making her points.

But, not all of the songs are winners. Take, for example, the lyrics to “J For Jules.” On that song, Mann wrote a far less inspired “I was saying my prayers / He was combing his hair / In a country that began with a / 'J' for Jules” (“J For Jules”). Mann is able to do better on many of the other songs, so why she doesn’t on this one is somewhat baffling.

All in all, Coming Up Close: A Retrospective is a good retrospective of a fairly average band from the 1980s. Anyone who likes light pop-rock will find something to like here.

The best song is “Voices Carry,” the low point is “J For Jules.”

For other works by ‘Til Tuesday and/or Aimee Mann, please check out my reviews of:
Voices Carry
Welcome Home
I'm With Stupid
Magnolia Soundtrack

6/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page for an organized listing of albums and singles by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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VERY Unremarkable ‘80s Pop: ‘Til Tuesday's Welcome Home.

The Good: Some lyrics, Some vocals
The Bad: Instrumental accompaniment is boring, Repetitive lyrics, Short
The Basics: A dismally blasé album, Welcome Home fares poorly over multiple listens.


I suspect there comes a time in virtually every band's progress when the band has to decide if it is truly a band or a solo act with very regular back-up artists. Despite the fact that Joey Pesce wrote one of the songs on Welcome Home, it appears by this point in the progress of ‘Til Tuesday, the band was essentially Aimee Mann with very regular backing instrumentalists. Unfortunately, Welcome Home is average-at-best and now sounds completely dated. Unlike other ‘Til Tuesday albums I have heard, Welcome Home suffers because it does not even have the hook other albums have (in other words, no hit single).

Welcome Home sounds like what it is, remarkably middle-of-the-road mid-1980s pop music. As such, it is loaded with synthesizer accompaniment, overproduced backing vocals and a poor replayability that comes from many of the songs sounding very similar.

With only ten tracks occupying 40:31, Welcome Home is largely the work of Aimee Mann and ‘Til Tuesday. Mann wrote all but one of the songs and she was involved in co-writing all of them. Aimee Mann provides the lead vocals on each and every track and she plays bass on most tracks as well. The other three members of the band, Robert Holmes, Joey Pesce, and Michael Hausman co-wrote a couple of the tracks and they provide musical accompaniment on the piano, synthesizer, guitars and percussion. The album was produced by Rhett Davis.

Sadly, Welcome Home is lacking in anything remotely catchy. Songs like “David Denies” and “Lover’s Day” might ingrain themselves in the mind of the listener solely because the lyrics are repeated so frequently in the songs. After several listens to this album, I cannot pick out a single tune. The reason for this is that most of the instrumental accompaniment is a very bland, almost ballad-like synthesizer accompaniment which is utterly indistinct. The album is hardly exciting and most of the songs have a slow, sad feel to them despite having the synthesizer as the primary instrumentation.

Vocally, Aimee Mann illustrates range on Welcome Home. She manages to go into her lower ranges on songs like “Sleeping And Waking” and she illustrates her flawless soprano voice on “What About Love.” But she garbles some of the lyrics on “Coming Up Close” and the inability to clearly understand all that she is singing is frustrating to the listener, especially when it seems the lines are not as inspired as some of her other works.

Lyrically, Welcome Home is a mix of sad little storysongs and the entire album has a melancholy feel to it. Mann seems especially wistful when she sings “Is it that a change of scene is all she needs / Maybe it's something she works out alone / And if I don't hold her up / Will she just fall down” (“Will She Just Fall Down?”)? It is almost as if she were singing about leaving the band and going her own way. Either way, the song about codependency seems an odd choice for a pop number and it does not quite fit the tune that accompanies it.

Many of the songs are about endings and a feeling of futility in relationships, but ‘Til Tuesday is not saying anything extraordinarily new. With lines like “It's what he wants I'm almost sure / And I can hardly stand him saying it's not so / And so I'll wait and so I'll hope / Somehow I can convince him not to let me go / David denies that he'll ever change his mind / (but he always changes) / David denies - but he's left his love behind / (left his love behind)” (“David Denies”) the band seems to want to muse on love, but there's no catch. We don't empathize with the musical protagonist because we don't care about her. Sometimes people do change and the song does not explore that well.

Finally, some of the songs are just plagued by repetition. I could live well without hearing “There's no such thing as lover’s day” (“Lover’s Day”) ever again. The idea isn't bad, but it’s a one-line idea and ‘Til Tuesday subjects the listener to that same line over and over. It’s not worth it.

Sadly, that is where I fall on Welcome Home. The album just isn't worth it. It is not new, it is not fresh and it sounds like what it is: something old and very mediocre.

For other works by ‘Til Tuesday and/or Aimee Mann, please check out my reviews of:
Voices Carry
I'm With Stupid
Magnolia Soundtrack

4/10

For other album and single reviews, please visit my index page for an organized list by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Growing On Me Through Repetition, I'm With Stupid Is Still Average Aimee Mann.

The Good: Clear vocals, Decent lyrics, Musically interesting
The Bad: Musically repetitive, Fails to be audacious, Duration.
The Basics: A generally clever album, I'm With Stupid still sounds a bit derivative and lacks a unique zest to make it a more firm recommend.


The more music I listen to by Aimee Mann, the more I feel like she has the bum's rush of popular music history. By this, I unfortunately mean that I would probably like her music better if I had heard her first, as opposed to the more popular artists whose works hers sound like. For sure, I can recognize rationally that Aimee Mann's album I'm With Stupid precedes many of Sheryl Crow and Heather Nova's albums which I find myself comparing I'm With Stupid to, but the fact is, I heard them first. Clearly Aimee Mann's musical influence was greater than I knew before I started immersing myself in her works, but between finding her works derivative of others or hearing others in her work, I am finding few of her albums truly take me in the way the artist no doubt intended they might. Aimee Mann was my Artist Of The Month a few months back and I did enjoy the Magnolia Soundtrack (click here for that review) and came to enjoy several of her albums.

With I'm With Stupid, I am genuinely able to acknowledge there is much in the way of originality with the lyrics and concepts of the songs. But at the same time, I know my overall enjoyment of the album came more from repetition than actually the album leaping out at me on the first pass. Sadly, while this might have boosted it up into average territory and a weak "recommend," it is important to note from the beginning that the recommendation is a fairly weak one.

With thirteen songs occupying 56:15, I'm With Stupid is very much the work of singer-songwriter Aimee Mann. Mann wrote eight of the songs on her own and co-wrote the other five. Aimee Mann provides the lead vocals on each track and she plays at least one musical instrument on every song, save "Amateur" and "Frankenstein." While Mann was not involved in the production of the album, it is hard to argue that she was not happy with the results as she continued to work with producer Jon Brion after this album.

Instrumentally, I'm With Stupid is a rich pop-rock album that never achieved commercial success in the mainstream of the U.S. The album is notable for its creative sounds on songs like "Frankenstein" which includes instrumentation like the distorted nylon guitar to make things sound funky. The album oscillates between mellow pop numbers like "Choice In The Matter" and upbeat pure pop songs like "Superball." There is also a very haunting ballad in "You're With Stupid" and those who have been fed a steady diet of popular music are likely to enjoy the musical diversity of this album, if nothing else.

Aimee Mann's vocals on the album are clear and crisp and like most of her albums, she illustrates exceptional vocal range, though she tends to remain in a given range in each song. So, while "Superball" is energetic and soprano in its presentation, songs like "Par For The Course" go lower. The common element is that Aimee Mann sings clearly enough so that every line may be clearly understood.

Thematically, I'm With Stupid is very much a pop album about the two pop standards: love and loss. Mann is smart enough, though, to mix them up with quite a bit of creativity and many of them feel fresh and new. So, while "Superball" may be a metaphor for simple endurance and resilience, some are pleasantly more complicated. For example, it takes until the finale of "Frankenstein" for the relationship metaphor to be revealed with "You may wonder what the catch is / As we batten down the hatches / And when later we find that the thing we devised / Has the villagers clamouring for it's demise / We will have to admit the futility of / Trying to make something more of this jerry-built love / And you'll notice it bears a resemblance to / Everything I imagined I wanted from you / But at least it's my own creation / And it's better than real / It's a real imitation."

As well, Aimee Mann is usually quite smart with her use of metaphor. Mann successfully likens interpersonal relationships to political relationships with lines that offer subtle comparisons like "I don't know how to break the news, but / It's pretty clear you'll be asked to choose between / What you lack and what you excuse in this / Tug of war / You can't say that they didn't warn you / Though you'd rather that they just ignore you / 'Cause your devices are not working for you / Anymore / What you want / You don't know / You're with stupid now" ("You're With Stupid Now"). Comparing a search for a viable partner to voting for a president is a stroke of genius and Mann carries the comparison remarkably well, with an eerie success.

Sadly, not all of the lyrics are cunning or fresh. Mann is plagued by some very obvious rhyme schemes on some of her songs. Indeed, it is hard not to cringe when she sings "It's all you deserve / The loss of the nerve / The grade of the curve . . .You loved her a lot / But she lost the plot" ("Par For The Course") just from the rhymes.

Generally, though, Mann's lyrics and sound still sound fresh - or they sound good enough to be mistaken for the likes of Sheryl Crow and occasionally Heather Nova - and different enough to be enjoyed even now. But the truth is, I'm With Stupid is an acquired taste, not a knock-'em-out-of-the-park listening experience.

The best track is "Frankenstein," the low point is the far less memorable "Long Shot," which opens the album.

For other works by strong female vocalists, please check out my reviews of:
Siren - Heather Nova
Left Of The Middle - Natalie Imbruglia
Any Day Now - Joan Baez

6/10

For other album reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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