Aimee Mann

Aimee Mann
Aimee Mann in concert on October 15, 2005.
Background information
Born	(1960-09-08) September 8, 1960 (age 51)
Origin	Richmond, Virginia, United States
Genres	Rock, folk
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, bass guitar, hi-hat
Years active	1982–present
Labels	SuperEgo
Associated acts	'Til Tuesday
Website	www.aimeemann.com

Aimee Mann (born September 8, 1960)^[1] is an American rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and bassist.^[2]

Biography

Early life

Aimee Mann grew up in Bon Air, Virginia, graduated from Open High School (Richmond, Virginia) in 1978^[3] and attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out to sing with her first punk rock band, the Young Snakes.^{[citation needed]} The band released the EP Bark Along with the Young Snakes in 1982, and a compilation album was issued in 2004.

In 1983, 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.^[2] The video became an MTV staple, winning the MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. Mann was featured on the Rush song "Time Stand Still" (from Hold Your Fire, 1987) which hit #3 on the American rock charts and became a minor UK hit, singing backup vocals and appearing in the music video.^[2] Her laughter is also heard at the start of "Force Ten," from the same album. With Mann playing an increasingly important role in songwriting, 'Til Tuesday released two more albums, Welcome Home and Everything's Different Now. Shortly after the release of Welcome Home, Mann told a writer for Nine-O-One Network Magazine that she was much more pleased with it than "Voices Carry", primarily because she felt it made more of a personal statement about her life.^[4] On their final tour, musician Jon Brion joined the band, which broke up in 1990 when Mann left to start her solo career.^[2]

Around the time of the first album's release, Mann began a romantic relationship with Jules Shear;^{[citation needed]} 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.

Early solo career

In 1993, Mann released Whatever, her first solo album. Promotion suffered due to the collapse of her label, Imago. The album sold modestly and met with critical praise, paving the way for her next release, 1995's I'm with Stupid, through Geffen Records.^[5] Again, reviews were positive, but sales were weak.

Mann met songwriter Michael Penn in the course of work on I'm with Stupid, and the two began dating. They were married in December 1997.

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.^[2]

In 1997 Mann recorded "Nobody Does It Better" on the album Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project.

Meanwhile, Mann became friends with film director Paul Thomas Anderson. This developed as her husband, Michael Penn, and Brion composed the soundtrack for Anderson's movie Hard Eight. Mann gained greater public recognition in 1999 — indeed, more than for anything else since "Voices Carry" — when she contributed eight songs to the soundtrack of Anderson's Magnolia, including the Academy Award and Grammy-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.^[who?] Her song "Amateur" appeared prominently in the 1998 movie Sliding Doors.

Independence

Disillusioned with both the ineffectual promotion and artistic meddling by her record label, an experience documented in songs such as "Calling It Quits" and "Nothing Is Good Enough", 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, Grant Lee Phillips of Grant Lee Buffalo, 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.

Lost in Space: 2002–2004

Mann continued her solo career with Lost in Space (2002), a somewhat more somber album in the same vein as Bachelor No. 2, featuring art by Seth. In 2003 her website released the Lost in Space Special Edition, which featured a second disc containing six live recordings (including a version of Coldplay's "The Scientist"), 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 and her band also played two songs from Lost in Space in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The Forgotten Arm and One More Drifter in the Snow: 2005–2006

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, having trained with the boxing trainer Freddie Roach.^[6] In 2006, Mann received her one Grammy Award to date for "Best Recording Package" for art direction work related to The Forgotten Arm (shared with Gail Marowitz). 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 "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. An updated version of the CD was released in 2008 incorporating the Joni Mitchell song "River".

2007–present

On July 31, 2007 the soundtrack for the motion picture Arctic Tale was released, featuring two new Mann songs, "The Great Beyond" and "At the Edge of the World".

July 2007 also saw the premiere of the music video for a song entitled "31 Today" (which featured comedienne Morgan Murphy alongside Mann and Bobcat Goldthwait as director) on YouTube.^[7] The song appears on Mann's seventh studio album, @#%&*! Smilers, released on June 3, 2008 featuring cover and inside art by Gary Taxali which was nominated for a 2009 Grammy Award for Best Art Package (art directed/designed by Gail Marowitz). The album debuted on the Billboard 200 at Number 32 (one of Mann's highest positions to date), and on the Top Independent Albums chart at Number 2.^[8] @#%&*! Smilers was met with mostly praise, with Billboard stating that it "pops with color, something that gives it an immediacy that's rare for an artist known for songs that subtly worm their way into the subconscious... Smilers grabs a listener, never making him or her work at learning the record, as there are both big pop hooks and a rich sonic sheen."^[9]

Mann joined the 9th annual Independent Music Awards judging panel to assist independent musicians' careers.^[10][11][12] She was also an inaugural member of the IMAs in 2002.^[13] In a September 2009 interview with Los Angeles blog LA Snark, Mann mentioned that she was beginning work on a musical based on her album The Forgotten Arm.^[14]

Mann's song "Wise Up" is being used for the organ donor campaign in Ontario, Canada and can be seen on the video within their site beadonor.ca

On her 2010 fall tour, Aimee talked about "The Forgotten Arm" musical, including playing four new songs written specifically for it: "You've Got To Be Willing To Hurt The One You Love", "Conflicted", "Easy to Die", and "Eiffel Tower". Two of these songs feature a new character from the musical, a boxing trainer named Ollie. In 2011, Aimee stated that the musical was put on hold indefinitely, due to similarities to The Fighter. However, she did post on her Facebook page that she has just finished recording a new album on December 2, 2011. On Episode 273 of WTF with Marc Maron, James Mercer of the The Shins stated that he had recorded a duet with Mann, which he expected to appear on her forthcoming album.

She can be heard contributing vocals on the song "Two Horses" in Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie.

Discography

• 1993 – Whatever
• 1995 – I'm with Stupid
• 2000 – Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo
• 2002 – Lost in Space
• 2005 – The Forgotten Arm
• 2006 – One More Drifter in the Snow
• 2008 – @#%&*! Smilers

Acting

• Mann played the role of a German nihilist who sacrificed her green nail polished little right toe in the movie The Big Lebowski (1998).
• Mann and her band appear as themselves in the 2002 Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Sleeper", performing the songs "This Is How It Goes" and "Pavlov's Bell" at The Bronze. She has one line in the episode: "Man, I hate playing vampire towns." "Pavlov's Bell" also appears on the Buffy soundtrack album Radio Sunnydale.
• She and her band also play themselves in a 2002 episode of The West Wing, "College Kids", performing a cover of James Taylor's "Shed a Little Light" at a Rock the Vote concert.
• In 2006, Mann guest-starred as herself on an episode of Love Monkey, "The One Who Got Away".
• On March 26, 2008, Mann appeared as herself in the Comedy Central series Lewis Black's Root of All Evil. She took the position that musicians don't need marijuana in a comedic interview conducted by comedian Paul F. Tompkins.
• Mann played herself as a cleaning woman (with the rationale that the music industry has become unprofitable) on the Independent Film Channel show Portlandia; the episode aired February 4, 2011.

Personal life

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 I'm with Stupid (to which Penn contributed vocals), which blossomed into romance and their marriage in 1997.^[5] Penn is the brother of actors Sean Penn and Chris Penn. Aimee has a sister.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aimee Mann

• Official site
• Aimee Mann's discography at Discogs
• Aimee Mann at Rolling Stone
• Aimee Mann Live Interview/Performance on KCMP (2005)
• Aimee Mann Live Interview/Performance on KCMP (2008)
• Aimee Mann at NPR Music
• Aimee Mann on IMDB
• Aimee Mann's Off-The-Wall Christmas Concert on NPR.prg
• Aimee Mann Live at St. Ann's Warehouse (Performs "The Moth") at Apple.com HD Video Gallery