I was digging through some old CDs the other day and happened across a compilation disc I made in the mid-’90s that had the title “Aimee Mann: My Miserable Life.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Aimee Mann, and have been a big fan of her music since the ‘Til Tuesday days, but there’s something about the misery and pain of a broken heart that Aimee chronicles so well. Maybe it was her relationship with Jules Shear that went sour and she used that pain to become a minor queen of misery. But whatever the case, she was able to use that failed relationship and mine some lyrical gold for two of ‘Til Tuesday’s best albums (Welcome Home and Everything’s Different Now), and three wonderfully written solo albums. Mann, um, lost her way with Lost in Space and The Forgotten Arm. Then Mann’s Christmas CD came out, and I had pretty much thrown in the towel and said “Uncle.”

So it was with great trepidation that I popped @#%&*! Smilers into the CD player. Imagine my surprise when the pop goodness of “Freeway” came out of my speakers. Yes, the lyrics are dumb (i.e., “You got a lot of money but you can’t afford the freeway”), but damn if that chorus isn’t an earworm. The bouncy vibe of “Freeway” gives way to more contemplative pieces like “Stranger into Starman” and “Phoenix” — with its awkward rhyming of “Phoenix” and “Kleenex.” A couple of standout tracks include “Borrowing Time,” and “31 Today,” which, to me, is vintage Mann. The song’s theme of quarter life malaise offers some powerful lyrics of lost youth and impending mid-adulthood: “I thought my life would be different somehow/I thought my life would be better by now/But it’s not and I don’t know where to turn.” In many ways, “31 Today,” is the second part to “Coming Up Close” Mann penned for ‘Til Tuesday’s Welcome Home album, but this time instead of love lost, there’s an emotional emptiness that is somewhat dulled with alcohol and TV. Like I said, misery and pain are Mann’s forte.

It’s unfortunate that after “31 Today,” the songs on @#%&*! Smilers drift off into a beige haze. Still, given what came before on the track listing, the CD contains a good collection of tracks that demonstrate Mann’s talent of exploring dark themes in the structure of a catchy pop song.

“Freeway” (download)
“31 Today” (download)

Welcome to the latest Popdose column to address our overall lack of self-esteem, Mope Like Me. White Label Wednesday fans, fear not — that column is still alive and well and will return next week and every other week after that. But eventually you have to stop dancing and unwind, and that’s what Mope Like Me is all about. Or, as Kurt Cobain once said, it’s about the comfort in being sad.

It only makes sense that I christen this feature with an Aimee Mann song — indeed, I could spend the rest of the year using nothing but Aimee Mann songs — but we begin with “David Denies” for a couple other reasons: one, it’s a viewpoint that various women from my past can unfortunately relate to, and two, it actually calls me out by name in the process.

“David Denies,” from ‘Til Tuesday’s awesome, awesome 1986 album Welcome Home (more on it later), is sung from the point of view of the other woman, detailing her hope that the love of her life will eventually figure out what he wants — and that she’ll be what he wants — but being rather matter-of-fact about the reality of the situation. The song’s power lies in its refusal to wallow in self-pity; the other woman obviously isn’t happy about the situation, but she’s adult enough to know that bitterness and spite will not help her case. And then there’s that chorus.

David denies that he’ll ever change his mind (but he always changes)
David denies, but he’s left his love behind

(more…)

Boston’s ‘Til Tuesday first got noticed after winning WBCN’s Rock & Roll Rumble contest in 1983, which led to the band getting signed to Epic Records. Two years later, their debut album’s title track, “Voices Carry,” hit #8, they won Best New Artist at the MTV Video Awards, and things looked bright indeed for Aimee Mann, Robert Holmes, Joey Pesce, and Michael Hausman. But this is LIT80s you’re reading here, so chances are you know how this story’s going to end come follow-up time.

“Looking Over My Shoulder (Single Version)” was the next single off Voices Carry and, oh, I don’t know … I love this album and all the songs, and I think this was probably the best choice. It’s catchy and more upbeat than “Voices Carry,” showing off a different side of the band. It had an amusingly engaging video that played off the press’s focus on Aimee at the expense of the rest of the band. Yet despite all that, it flopped. Who knows why? These are the things that used to keep me up at night. Epic obviously had high hopes for the single since they commissioned big-shot engineer Bob Clearmountain to remix it (that’s the version featured here).

Back to the video — it cracks me up that the entire setup is that the band is pissed off at Aimee for being the focus of the last video. So how does this video address it? By showcasing Aimee again! Poor li’l princess …

Epic tried to revive the project with a third single, “Love in a Vacuum,” the very song that won the Rock & Roll Rumble for the band years earlier. But the momentum was lost, and the single failed to chart. A year later, ‘Til Tuesday’s second album, Welcome Home, scored the group’s second and final Top 40 hit, “What About Love.” The band, with a reduced lineup focused almost solely on Aimee, soldiered on for an excellent third effort, Everything’s Different Now, but even with the songwriting power of Matthew Sweet, Jules Shear, and Elvis Costello, it was virtually and unjustly ignored.

That’s okay, though, because Aimee got her revenge a few more years and record labels later, when she started her own label and began a string of critically acclaimed and more commercially successful solo albums. See? Sometimes LIT80s tales have happy endings.