Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 2005…
#6 – The Forgotten Arm – Aimee Mann
Aimee Mann’s fifth solo release is a concept album about a romance between Vietnam vet boxer John and his girlfriend Caroline. Set in the 70s, it depicts the couple’s struggle with John’s alcoholism.
Though the songs shape the narrative, they are general enough to work as standalone tracks, and Mann serves up a great batch of her signature melancholy mid-tempo pop.
Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 1995…
#3 – I’m With Stupid – Aimee Mann
I have a fondness for gateway albums, the first work you hear from an artist who goes on to be a favorite. Often those records remain among my favorites even if other work eclipses them creatively.
Aimee Mann’s I’m With Stupid was my first real exposure to the singer-songwriter, apart from knowing the hit single ‘Voices Carry’ by her band ‘Til Tuesday.
Aimee Mann’s 1993 Whatever is one of the great debut records, a dazzling collection of smart, emotional pop songs. It began a three decades and counting run of wonderful output by one of music’s most underrated songwriters.
While this was Mann’s solo debut, it’s easy to draw a line to Whatever from ‘Til Tuesday’s final album, 1988’s Everything’s Different Now. That record, for which Mann wrote or co-wrote all but one track, has all the hallmarks of her solo work only in glossy New Wave packaging.
Aimee Mann’s latest album came out a week ago today (though it hasn’t yet been released as I write this). Queens of the Summer Hotel is an interesting project, a batch of songs written for a planned stage musical based on the 1993 memoir Girl, Interrupted by Susannah Kaysen.
The book, about the author’s experiences as a young woman in a psychiatric hospital, seems like a weird fit for a musical. A 1999 film adaptation worked well enough, winning strong reviews for star Winona Ryder and an Oscar for co-star Angelina Jolie. But setting such dark and unsettling material to music? I don’t know.
Boogie Nights bought Paul Thomas Anderson enough creative capital to do whatever the hell he wanted on his next film, and he spent every penny of it. He delivered 1999’s Magnolia, a 3+ hour melodrama that follows a dozen main characters and culminates in a rain of frogs.
This is a glorious, full-hearted mess of a movie. It could easily lose 20-30 minutes (something Anderson himself now admits) and yet its grand ambition is one of its greatest charms. And as a time capsule of Anderson’s early development as an auteur, I’m glad it exists in its fascinating, imperfect original form.
Meet Me In Montauk 