Aimee Mann
“@#%&! Smilers”
2008 Superego Records
Grade: A
Career GPA (based on buyer ratings from Amazon.com): 3.7
By: Brent Owen
My relationship with Aimee Mann’s music has been kind of like that girl who you never really dated but somehow has been a consistent bed partner through many different phases of your life. There may be years in between trysts – but it’s inevitable that eventually she’ll end up in your bed again someday.
I first “met” Aimee’s music in the spring of 1996 when she was the opening act for Bob Dylan at the Palace Theater in
And then we lost touch.
We were “reunited” a few years later just as I was graduating from high school and fell in love with Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Magnolia – which she did the entire soundtrack for. At this point I felt a connection based on our history together, so it only seemed right that I get to know a little bit about her past. So I started buying ‘Til Tuesday albums and some of her previous solo records in a veiled attempt to know her on an even more intimate level than we already were.
But then we lost touch.
Alas, we have met again – nearly ten years later and she feels the same, she feels familiar, she feels like that same woman who made love to me from the stage on that May evening all those years ago. And I can’t help but wonder what she’s been up to for the past ten years – pining over me perhaps?
The title @#%&! Smilers, hints at the very cynicism that I can not only relate to, but that drew us together so long ago; conversely it’s possible that it’s the very reason I never called the next day. I must admit though, I’m not a fan of being coy – I wish she had gone all the way and titled the record what she is hinting at. Remove the Sunday morning comic swear symbols and say what you’re thinking. Say: Fuck Smilers. Fuck those of you who are happy, fuck those of you who are in long lasting, functional relationships, and fuck all of you and your white picket fence, American dream. Just say it: Fuck Smilers!
Aimee has acquired a lot over the course of three decades in the music industry – and they all come together on this disc. “Freeway” might possibly be the best song she has written in her entire career. It hinges on a down trodden chorus that evokes the delta bluesmen of the forties and fifties, while mixing flares from a synthesizer that recalls the New Wave decade from which she rose; and yet she manages to create an arrangement where everything feels like musical decoration and nothing feels like the focal point.
“Medicine Wheel” might be the angriest song every written with little more than a piano and vocal arrangement. The sadness disguised as anger in her voice reminds us that it’s these unfettered glimpses into the human condition that helps keep Rock N’ Roll a poignant and relevant extension of the public consciousness. And the metaphor that is “Little Tornado” is so obvious it’s almost cliché but in the hands of a gifted songwriter like Mann it’s still moving beyond words.
I abuse my relationship with Aimee Mann. She might have been the right musical fit for me countless numbers of times and yet my pride has stood in the way of what might have been “us”. In the course of @#%&! Smilers, though, I feel like her and I have finally sat down and had “the talk”. We both know I’ll probably be gone tomorrow, we both know she’ll probably show back up somewhere further down the road, and we both know that we’ll start this dance all over again…someday.
Previous Albums:
One More Drifter in the Snow
The Forgotten Arm
Lost In Space
Bachelor No. 2
Ultimate Collection
Magnolia: Music from the Motion Picture
I’m With Stupid
Stupid Thing
Whatever
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