Aimee Mann

At Berklee, Mann and Michael Hausman formed a new wave band, 'Til Tuesday, with Mann providing bass and vocals.[11] They signed to Epic Records and released Voices Carry, their debut album, in 1985. The single "Voices Carry" reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100[12] and won that year's MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist.[13] According to Mann, "Voices Carry" was one of the first songs she wrote.[14] Stereogum described it as "an early indicator of Mann's penchant for character study, drawing outside the lines of boy-meets-girl love songs".[14] The success made Mann an early female MTV star. The Washington Post described her as "a neo-punk pop princess, a new wave glamour girl, all doe eyes, gangly limbs and spiky bleached hair with that long, braided tail snaking out from underneath".[5]

'Til Tuesday released Welcome Home, their second album, in 1986.[14] Mann sang vocals with Geddy Lee on the 1987 single "Time Stand Still" by Rush, and appeared in the music video.[15][16] 'Til Tuesday released their third and final album, Everything's Different Now, in 1988.[17] It demonstrated a significant development in Mann's songwriting but was a commercial failure. Mann said it had been abandoned by Epic following a change of staff.[14]

'Til Tuesday broke up in 1990 when Mann left to start her solo career.[15] She said later that her musical interests had changed, and that she was more interested in "acoustic guitar music" than the new wave pop of 'Til Tuesday.[14] Hausman, her former boyfriend, became her manager.[5] Epic did not release Mann from her record contract for another three years, which prevented her from releasing new material. It was the first of several disputes Mann had with record labels, which Hausman said had a lasting effect on her attitude to the music industry.[18]

Mann developed her first solo albums with the producer Jon Brion,[14] who had been a member of the 'Til Tuesday touring band.[1] Mann found working with Brion exciting and felt her songwriting improved with him. Together, they developed a sound that the Stereogum writer Doug Bleggi called "LA alternative".[14] Mann's debut solo album, Whatever, was released in 1993 on the independent label Imago. Despite positive reviews, it did not meet sales expectations.[19][20] In 1994, Mann moved to Los Angeles.[21] She also toured as part of the British band Squeeze, playing her own songs and songs by Squeeze.[14]

After Mann finished her second album, I'm with Stupid, Imago encountered financial problems and delayed its release. Imago eventually sold it to Geffen, which signed Mann in 1994 and released I'm with Stupid in 1995.[18] According to Pitchfork, while Mann's solo albums demonstrated she was "a witty, self-possessed songwriter", she was still failing to meet commercial expectations, with sales in the low six figures.[19] Mann began to be seen as a relic of the 1980s.[14][22] Dick Wingate, the executive who signed 'Til Tuesday to Epic, described Mann as "the model of an artist who has been chewed up and spit out by the music business", saying that disappointment and bad luck had made her distrustful of record labels.[18][20]

Later in the decade, Mann became a regular act at Largo, a Los Angeles nightclub that hosted performances from alternative songwriters including Brion, Elliott Smith, Fiona Apple and Rufus Wainwright.[18] This shaped Mann's songwriting; Largo fit Mann so well that the owner jokingly nicknamed it "Aimee Mann's clubhouse".[19] In 1997, Mann recorded a cover of "Nobody Does It Better", the theme song of the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, for the album Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project.[23] She also made a cameo in the 1998 film The Big Lebowski as a German nihilist.[24]

Mann received wider recognition after she contributed songs to the 1999 film Magnolia. Her music had inspired the film; the director, Paul Thomas Anderson,[25] another Largo regular,[18] said he "sat down to write an adaptation of Aimee Mann songs".[22] The film features dialogue taken from Mann's lyrics and a sequence in which the cast sing her song "Wise Up".[22] The song "Save Me" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal and an Academy Award for Best Original Song;[22] Mann performed it at the 72nd Academy Awards.[19] In 2021, the Los Angeles Times described "Save Me" as Mann's masterpiece, which "solidified Mann's stature as an esteemed songwriter".[1] Mann later said it "really gave a blood transfusion to my career. But it wasn't like I went from playing to five people to 5,000 people. It was just a real influx of energy."[14] The Magnolia soundtrack album was certified gold.[22]

The success of the Magnolia soundtrack caused Mann stress, as she felt pressure to capitalize on it and tour heavily.[4] She took more control over the production of her third album, Bachelor No. 2.[27] Geffen refused to release it, feeling it contained no hit singles.[19] In response, Mann sold homemade EPs of her new music on tour in 1999,[28] which she described as a "DIY fuck-you-record-company-I'm-selling-it-myself move".[14] She accepted an offer from Geffen to leave her contract,[27] feeling she wanted to be "in charge of her own destiny".[27]

In 1999, Mann and Hausman formed their own label, SuperEgo Records.[29] With Mann's husband, the songwriter Michael Penn, they also established United Musicians, a collective working outside the major label system.[20][30] Using the money earned through royalties from Magnolia, Mann bought the Bachelor No. 2 masters from Geffen.[20] She sold 25,000 copies of the album via mail order from her website, a large amount for an independent artist.[19][31] After she secured a distribution deal,[31] Bachelor No. 2 sold 270,000 copies,[27] outperforming I'm with Stupid.[19] Pitchfork described this as a "decisive victory".[19] Bachelor No. 2 became the 28th-best-reviewed album of the decade, according to the aggregation website Metacritic.[32] The success established Mann as a career artist who could work outside of the major label system.[14]

In 2000, Mann and Penn formed the Acoustic Vaudeville project, a mixture of music and comedy. Among the comedians joining them were Janeane Garofalo, Patton Oswalt and David Cross.[33][34][35][36] In 2001, Mann sued Universal Music over the release of a greatest-hits compilation, The Ultimate Collection, which she had not authorized and considered "substandard and misleading".[37] The Boston Globe characterized the lawsuit as one of several challenges to major labels by female musicians that year, including Courtney Love and the Dixie Chicks.[38] That year, Mann was also a judge at the inaugural Annual Independent Music Awards, an award for promoting independent musicians.[39][40] She judged the awards again in 2011.[39]

Following her solo success, Mann had a mental breakdown and entered a period of depression.[1] She also had intrusive thoughts resulting from an accident when the car of a drunk driver flipped her tour bus.[4] In 2002, she entered the Sierra Tucson rehabilitation center with anxiety and depression, and PTSD triggered by her kidnapping as a child.[4]

Mann referenced her mental health problems obliquely in her fourth album, Lost in Space, released in August 2002.[41] Paste described it as "another marvelous collection of Mann's intimate portraits of lost love and broken people, all set to a wry pop soundtrack that often lilts at the precise moment that one would expect dour melancholy".[20] In 2004, Mann released Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, a live album and DVD recorded at a series of shows in Brooklyn, New York City.[42] She also appeared in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer,[24] performing "This Is How It Goes" and "Pavlov's Bell", and on The West Wing, performing a cover of James Taylor's "Shed a Little Light".[43] Mann sang on "That's Me Trying" from William Shatner's 2004 album Has Been, cowritten and produced by Ben Folds.[44]

Mann in concert in Solana Beach, California, 2005

In May 2005, Mann released The Forgotten Arm, a concept album set in the 1970s about two lovers who meet at the Virginia State Fair and go on the run.[45] The album artwork won a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.[46] In October 2006, Mann released One More Drifter in the Snow, a Christmas album featuring covers and new songs.[47] Mann said she did not enjoy music that combines Christmas songs with modern genres, and instead drew inspiration from Christmas records by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and the Vince Guaraldi Trio.[48] In 2007, Mann contributed two original songs, "The Great Beyond" and "At the Edge of the World", to the soundtrack to the film Arctic Tale.[49] She also contributed vocals to "Unforgiven" on John Doe's album A Year in the Wilderness.[50]

In June 2008, Mann released her seventh album, @#%&*! Smilers. It features minimal electric guitar and an emphasis on keyboards.[26] It debuted on the Billboard 200 at number 32 and on the Top Independent Albums chart at number 2.[51] @#%&*! Smilers received mostly positive reviews,[52] with AllMusic writing 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."[53] The artwork, by Gary Taxali, was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.[54]

In May 2011, Mann performed for President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama at a poetry seminar at the White House.[55] She also appeared in a sketch for the Independent Film Channel series Portlandia. Mann played herself as a cleaner, explaining that she needs the second job to support herself.[56]

In 2012, Mann released her eighth solo album, Charmer, comprising songs based on the theme that personal charm should not always be trusted. One song, "Crazytown", is about an alcoholic "manic pixie dream girl".[57] Two singles were released: "Charmer", with a music video directed by Tom Scharpling, and "Labrador", which features the actor Jon Hamm and references to Mann's music videos with 'Til Tuesday.[58] In the same year, Mann contributed vocals to Steve Vai's album The Story of Light on "No More Amsterdam" and recorded the song "Two Horses" for the soundtrack of the film Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie.[59]

Mann with Ted Leo as the Both in Philadelphia, 2014

In February 2013, Mann and Ted Leo formed a duo, the Both, and performed shows in Los Angeles and San Francisco.[60] They released an album in April 2014.[61] In 2013, Mann appeared on the Ivan & Alyosha album All the Times We Had.[62] On July 22, she filed a lawsuit against MediaNet, saying they were distributing 120 of her songs on an expired license agreement.[63] She attempted to claim as much as $18 million in statutory damages.[64] Mann settled out of court in 2015.[65]

In February 2014, Mann appeared in an episode of the animated series Steven Universe as the voice of the Gem fusion Opal.[66] She reprised her role for Steven Universe: The Movie (2019), performing the song "Independent Together" with Leo.[67] Mann contributed a version of Styx's "Come Sail Away" to the 2014 Community episode "Geothermal Escapism".[68] In 2015, Mann and Leo appeared on Conan performing a song in support of the 2016 US presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee.[69] Mann covered the Carpenters' 1973 single "Yesterday Once More" for a 2016 episode of the HBO drama Vinyl.[70] In October 2016, Mann released a new song, "Can't You Tell", as part of the 30 Days 30 Songs campaign protesting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.[71]

In March 2017, Mann released her ninth solo album, Mental Illness, featuring collaborations with the songwriters Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick.[72][73] It won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.[74] Coulton joined Mann for some performances on the Mental Illness tour.[72] That September, Mann contributed the song "Everybody Bleeds" to an episode of the Netflix series Big Mouth.[75] In January 2018, Mann appeared in an episode of the FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story as a bar singer, performing the 1984 Cars song "Drive".[76] She also appeared in the sitcom Corporate in the episode "The Pain of Being Alive".[77] In 2019, Mann released an expanded 20th-anniversary reissue of Bachelor No. 2 for Record Store Day.[78] She also hosted a podcast with Leo, The Art of Process, interviewing celebrities including Wyatt Cenac and Rebecca Sugar.[79]

Mann with Jonathan Coulton in London, 2017

In 2020, Mann wrote a song, "Big Deal", for the animated series Central Park, performed by Stanley Tucci.[80] On November 5, 2021, Mann released her tenth album, Queens of the Summer Hotel. It features songs inspired by Girl, Interrupted, the 1993 memoir by Susanna Kaysen about her time in a psychiatric hospital. Mann had developed the songs for a musical based on the memoir with the producers Barbara Broccoli and Frederick Zollo, which was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic.[4]

In January 2022, Mann began posting autobiographical comics on Instagram.[10] She said that making comics was similar to songwriting: "Having a short amount of time to make a point or to tell a little story ... It's by necessity very truncated."[81] She described cartooning as a "weird, lonely, insular drive-yourself-crazy activity", unlike the communal activity of performing and recording music.[81] In 2023, Mann mentioned plans to create a graphic memoir.[81]

In April 2022, Mann displayed a series of her paintings, You Could Have Been a Roosevelt, at City Winery, Manhattan. The paintings are portraits of "the ten worst US presidents" and a selection of first ladies. Mann created them after promising her friend, the politician Antony Blinken, a painting for his White House office.[82] She said that Blinken "declined to have a portrait of Millard Fillmore on his wall, and I can't say I blame him".[82]

Mann was scheduled to open for Steely Dan on their 2022 tour, but was dropped. She said she had heard that Steely Dan did not think a female singer-songwriter would suit their audience. Donald Fagen, the co-founder of Steely Dan, denied this and instead said that Mann was not a good musical fit. He apologized, saying he respected Mann and did not realize any commitment had been made. Mann accepted the apology and said it was plausible that Fagen did not know she had been announced for the tour.[83] She covered the Steely Dan song "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)" on tour that year.[83]

On May 22, 2022, Mann led a lineup of women performers raising funds for the Magee Women's Institute at Novo, Los Angeles.[84] In January 2023, she launched an Audible podcast, Straw into Gold, in which she interviewed artists about the connection between art and trauma.[81]

In 2002, Mann said she was mainly influenced by "classic" 1970s chord progressions and melodies.[20] She cited Leonard Cohen, Stephen Sondheim, Fiona Apple and Jimmy Webb as artists she admires,[57] and said that Steely Dan was "the one band that I 100% love, with no reservations".[83] She said Elton John was the artist who was most important to her at an early age: "His melody, the chords, his singing ... There was something in the DNA of his melodic structure that I picked up on later and was influenced by."[89] Mann said that American Songbook standards and ragtime had "resonance" for her.[89]