So how, following up on Ice T’s “hot plate of dicks” comment, how badly does Aimee Mann suck?
By most peoples standards not so much, by the bar she set herself, a whole hell of a lot.
Post 80s pop band Till Tuesday -a band undone by a haircut, Mann recorded three great albums in a row. Whatever, I’m With Stupid and Bachelor # 2. I saw her at Irving Plaza circa Stupid and was blown away. The place was empty, I was up front, and sometime in the middle of a superbly melodic jam to “Par For The Course” and from that moment in 1995 to sometime in the middle of The Forgotten Arm (three albums, one soundtrack later) in 2005, I always gave Mann in the benefit of the doubt.
But the two new songs off Magnolia weren’t up to much and the choiceo f songs a bit dull.
Lost In Space, though. That’s when the problems became clear. Two first tier Mann songs and two CDs of ho fucking hum.
A rock opera, a Christmas album, a live album and an underachiever later and Mann has lost so much credibility you can’t help but wonder if it is time she did something, anything, to shake up her creative juices.
Till then we’re stuck with crap like “Stranger Into Starman”