Aimee Mann (born September 8, 1960) is an
American rock guitarist, bassist, singer, and noted
songwriter.
Biography
Aimee Mann was born in Midlothian, Virginia, graduated from Open High School and attended the Berklee College of
Music in Boston, but dropped out to sing with her first punk rock band, the Young Snakes; the band released the EP
Bark Along with the Young Snakes in 1982, and a compilation
album was issued in 2004.
In 1983, seeking a return to "sweetness and melody", she co-founded with Berklee classmate and boyfriend Michael Hausman the new wave band 'Til Tuesday, which achieved success in 1985 with its first album, Voices
Carry. The title song is said to be inspired by Hausman and Mann's breakup; the video became an MTV staple, winning the MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist, although Mann's then-signature
spiky hair would lead some to dismiss the group. Mann performed with the rock band Rush on
the song "Time Stand Still" (from Hold Your Fire, 1987), singing backup vocals and
appearing in the music video. With Mann playing an increasingly important role in songwriting, 'Til Tuesday released two more
albums, Welcome Home and Everything's Different Now. On the final album and tour, musician Jon Brion joined the band, which broke up in 1990 when Mann left to start her solo career.
Around the time of the first album's release, Mann began a romantic relationship with Jules
Shear; they broke up before the final 'Til Tuesday album, which contained the song "J For Jules." Professional
relationships from the band would continue: Hausman later became Mann's manager, and Brion produced her first two solo albums,
along with the Magnolia soundtrack.
Solo career
In 1993 Mann released Whatever, her first solo album. Promotion suffered due
to the collapse of her label, Imago. While only a small hit, the album was critically praised, and paved the way for her next
release, 1995's I'm with Stupid, through Geffen Records. Again, reviews were positive, but sales were weak.
Mann met fellow singer-songwriter Michael
Penn in the late 1980s and with comparable songwriting styles and record-industry woes to share, they struck up a
friendship during the recording of Stupid (to which Penn contributed vocals), which blossomed into romance and their 1997
marriage. Penn and Mann live in the Los Feliz neighborhood of
Los Angeles. They have no children, but Penn has a son from a previous
marriage.
Mann recorded Bachelor No. 2, but Geffen saw no hit singles in the material and
ordered her back to the studio. The album languished while Mann and the label fought.
Meanwhile, film director Paul Thomas Anderson, for whom Penn and Brion had
composed a soundtrack, became a close friend. Mann gained greater public recognition in 1999 — indeed, more than anything else
since "Voices Carry" — when she contributed eight songs to the soundtrack of Anderson's Magnolia, including the Academy Award-nominated song, "Save
Me." Anderson deliberately worked from Mann's lyrics to create the film's characters and situations. Mann soon became sought
after as a soundtrack contributor.
Independence
Disillusioned with both the ineffectual promotion and artistic meddling by her record label, an experience documented in her
song "Calling It Quits", she struck out on her own and founded SuperEgo Records in 1999. Mann
self-released Bachelor No. 2 in 2000, having negotiated a contract release from David
Geffen, and though initially only sold at concerts and via her website, the album became successful, allowing her to
secure retail distribution through SuperEgo. The album, which included some songs from Magnolia and new material, was
widely admired and Mann's "more indie than indie" success was carefully noted by other
musicians.
Mann, Penn, Brion, Fiona Apple, and other musicians had by this time developed a
subculture around the Largo nightclub in L.A. Penn and Mann formed a concept called
Acoustic Vaudeville to recreate it on tour in California and eventually on an irregular, ongoing
national tour. The Acoustic Vaudeville shows intermix music and stand-up comedy; among the comedians joining them for individual
shows were Janeane Garofalo, Patton Oswalt, and
David Cross. Mann continued her solo career with Lost in Space (2002), a somewhat more sombre album in the same vein as Bachelor No. 2.
In 2003 her website released the Lost in Space Special Edition, which featured a second disc containing six live
recordings, as well two B-sides and two previously unreleased songs. In November 2004, Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, a live album and DVD recorded
at a series of June 2004 shows in Brooklyn, came out; the two discs were sold packaged together
in either a CD jewel case or a DVD case.
Mann described her next album, The Forgotten Arm (2005), as a
concept album set in the 1970s about two lovers who meet at the Virginia state fair and go on the run. The Joe Henry-produced album, which
was recorded mostly live with few overdubs, was released May 3, 2005. The album's illustrations and title reflect Mann's interest in boxing. The
album title derives from a boxing move in which one arm is used to hit the opponent, causing him to "forget" about the other arm,
which is then used to deliver a harsher blow. The album received weaker reviews overall, with critics impressed at the totality
but unimpressed with any individual songs.
Mann also released an EP for Christmas in 2005 as a cover single of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" for sale through her website and
iTunes. It also included "Christmastime", the 1996 duet she recorded with Penn for the
Hard Eight soundtrack, and a cover of "The
Christmas Song". The iTunes version replaced "Christmastime" with a cover of Joni
Mitchell's "River" and "I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up for Christmas" from The Forgotten Arm.
Mann's independence from the industry led to more overt political stances. She joined Artists Against
Piracy, a group formed to act against the illegal downloading and
file sharing of copyrighted music from the
Internet. Mann, Penn and Hausman took their experience with SuperEgo to found the
independent music collective
United Musicians, which is based on the principle that every artist should be able to
retain copyright ownership of the work he or she has created, in contrast to normal music
industry contracts.
In July 2006, Mann announced that she would be releasing One More Drifter in
the Snow, a full-length Christmas album. The album featured primarily covers
of Christmas standards, as well as a new version of "Christmastime" and an original song, called "Calling On Mary", written by
Mann and bassist Paul Bryan, who produced the record. It was released on October 31 in the
US, and late November 2006 in the UK. [1]
In July 2007, the music video for a song entitled '31 Today' (which featured comedienne Morgan Murphy alongside Mann) was
posted on the internet.[2]
The song will presumably be featured on Mann's sixth studio album, tentatively titled Smilers, which has been slated for
an early 2008 release.
July 31, 2007 saw the release of the soundtrack for the motion picture Arctic Tale
featuring two new Mann songs, "The Great Beyond" and "At the Edge of the World."
Discography
With The Young Snakes
With 'Til Tuesday
Solo
Virtual albums
- iTunes Originals - Aimee Mann
Guest appearances and covers
- 1987 - "The Faraway Nearby" by Cyndi Lauper (backing vocals) on the album, True
Colors.
- 1987 - "Time Stand Still" by Rush (backing vocals) on their album, Hold Your Fire
- 1995 - "One", a Harry Nilsson cover for the "For the Love of Harry: Everybody Sings
Nilsson" tribute album. Later appears on the "Magnolia" soundtrack.
- 1996 - "Christmastime" with Michael Penn, played over the credits for the film,
Hard Eight
- 1996 - "Christmastime" with Michael Penn, appears on the holiday compilation album "Just Say Noel."
- 1996 - "Baby Blue", a Badfinger cover, appears on the tribute compilation, Come and Get
It: A Tribute to Badfinger
- 1997 - "Nobody Does It Better", a cover of the Carly Simon theme for The Spy Who Loved Me on
the compilation, Shaken & Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project
- 1999 - "The Christmas Song," a cover of the Mel Torme/Robert Wells song popularized by Nat "King" Cole, appears on the
holiday compilation "Viva Noel: Q Division Christmas."
- 2000 - "Reason to Believe" with Michael Penn, a Bruce Springsteen cover on the
tribute album, Badlands: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska
- 2001 - "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" duet with her
husband, Michael Penn during A Tribute To Brian
Wilson
- 2002 - "Two of Us", a Beatles cover with Michael Penn
for the I Am Sam soundtrack
- 2002 - "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", a Beatles cover for the I Am Sam soundtrack, European
Edition
- 2004 - "What the World Needs Now", a Burt Bacharach cover. First appeared in a Calvin Klein commercial,
and was later available on a Starbucks compilation titled Sweetheart Love Songs.
- 2004 - "The Scientist", a Coldplay cover,
appears on the second disc for the Lost in Space Special Edition
- 2004 - "Static on the Radio" with Jim White on his album Drill a Hole in That Substrate
and Tell Me What You See
- 2004 - "That's Me Trying" by William Shatner (backing vocals) on his album,
Has Been
- 2005 - "Where's the Party?" by Jim Boggia (backing vocals) on his album, Safe in Sound
Promos
(directors in parenthesis)
- Stupid Thing (1993)
- I Should've Known (Katherine Dieckmann) (1993)
- Say Anything (1993)
- That's Just What You Are (1995)
- Amateur (Bobby Woods) (1995)
- Save Me (Paul Thomas Anderson) (1999)
- Ghost World (Michael Panes) (2000)
- Calling It Quits (Robert Cohen) (2000)
- Red Vines (Evan Mather) (spec video) (2001)
- Pavlov's Bell (James Frost) (2002)
- How Am I Different (Naoki Mitsuse) (2002) (in fact a short film called "Joe's Story 01")
- Pavlov's Bell (Evan Mather) (spec video) (2003)
- Video (James Frost) (spec
video) (2005)
Acting
Trivia
- Mann is a fan of the comic book writer Seth who drew the cover for her album
Lost in Space.
- She has a tattoo of a large anchor on her right upper arm as a tribute to her father, who
served in the United States Navy.
External links
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