Aimee Mann
SPACE ODYSSEY Aimee Mann Takes the Long Way to Stardom
Aimee Mann's career is in its second orbit and gaining momentum -- again. The Big Bang was her MTV hit "Voices Carry" with her first band, Til Tuesday, but her star cooled when she went solo and found her first two albums all but ignored by her record labels. Enter filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, who used some of Mann's unreleased songs as the seeds for his acclaimed film Magnolia; the soundtrack earned Mann an Oscar nomination and a gold record. Following that breakthrough, Aimee Mann has hit her artistic stride with Bachelor No. 2 and her latest, Lost in Space, which convey a brooding, yet gorgeously melodic melancholy, her aching lyrics set aloft by her increasingly winsome vocals. Mann spoke with Barnes & Noble.com's Pop Music editor, Lydia Vanderloo, about how the stars aligned for the making of Lost in Space.
Barnes & Noble.com: How was it different recording Lost in Space from Bachelor No. 2?
Aimee Mann: I think the main difference is knowing that you have to try to keep within a more modest budget. I'd never recorded at really big studios in the first place, but this time we did it all on Pro Tools in a very small studio. It was the engineer's apartment.
B&N.com: Was there anything that you were listening to while you were making the record that seeped in?
AM: I'd started to listen to Elliott Smith's XO again, and I know a lot of that seeped in. I don't know if you can hear it. Certainly for me, I think it seeped into the songwriting in a big way.
B&N.com: What about his music do you find so inspiring?
AM: I think he's incredibly honest. He's a fantastic lyric writer, but he's very honest about himself. It's very courageous. He really goes out on a limb, and I really appreciate that. And musically, I think his melodies are very haunting and beautiful. I love the way he sings. I just love the whole vibe of it.
B&N.com: You're also in the record business, releasing this album and the last on your own Super Ego label. To promote this one, you're doing free streams of the record on the Web. Do you worry that making the whole record available will make people not want to buy it?
AM: No. First of all, it's not available for download. I think it's essential to have a way that people can hear it beforehand because it's just asking too much. For an artist like me who can't expect to get very much airplay, there's not really a lot of places people can go to hear [my music]. So I think it's essential to have a forum so they can check it out first.
B&N.com: Has the Internet been a useful tool for you in that way?
AM: The Internet is very useful on a lot of levels. I think that people are just constantly coming up with new approaches. I mean, this idea [of streaming the album], of course, we got from Wilco. That's what they did before they released their record [Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]. So we were like, sign me up! Good idea. Thanks, Wilco.
B&N.com: Did you sell more copies of Bachelor No. 2 than you expected?
AM: I did. I sold more records than I had sold on a major label. The Magnolia soundtrack was on a major label, obviously, and that sold half a million records. But for my own solo records, I sold more on my own than I sold on either Geffen or Imago.
B&N.com: Why do you think that is?
AM: I know that I was helped a lot by the publicity that Magnolia generated. Also, if the record company is just me, my manager, and his assistant, at least that's three people who are doing their utmost to support a record, whereas at a record company you can literally get no one. If they don't make you a priority, you can be completely ignored. Two people working to their capacity is better than 50 people not doing anything. Those guys worked really hard, and I think we saw the result.
B&N.com: Back to the songs on Lost in Space: It seems to me that some of the songs address disconnected relationships or aloneness.
AM: Yes. A lot of disconnection, a lot of people who feel disconnected from each other or totally disassociated, so they're disconnected from themselves.
B&N.com: Was that something that linked this group of songs for you?
AM: Yeah, there were themes where one would start to go into the other, so they started to group together. And other songs that didn't really fit in with that. And being that I can do whatever I want, no matter how foolhardy, I just felt like, these songs all belong together and it'll make a really, really dark, depressing record. But that's what my fans know me for, so why not.
B&N.com: I was thinking of "Lost in Space" and "This Is How It Goes."
AM: Yeah. I know, I hear you. "This Is How It Goes" -- really, could that be more bleak? That just really kind of lays it all out. "It's all about drugs." There's like a world full of pathetic people who can barely keep it together, and those are my kind of people.
B&N.com: A lot of the songs mention drugs. Was that something that just filtered in or that you had intended?
AM: Well, I think I started to use drugs as a catchall for the idea of addiction because you use the word drugs and people kind of understand what you're talking about. There are more complicated feelings that are tied up in addictive or compulsive impulses. But the word "drugs" says it all -- whatever the drug is, you pretty much get that. Everybody knows what that's about.
B&N.com: And on "High on Sunday 51," there's that line about "Let me be your heroine," which is an interesting double entendre.
AM: Now, that's a line that I did not write because I collaborated [on that song] with a friend of mine. It was actually just an exercise. He was starting to write songs himself, he was looking for advice or critique, and he'd sent me these lyrics, which I really, really liked. So some of the lines, I said well, these lines are really great, but the idea is so dark, it's so raw in a way, so you really would have to have music that underscores the seriousness of that. Because you have to take that kind of statement seriously, otherwise it sounds like somebody kidding around or being overdramatic. And the music he was working on didn't really have that, so as an example I started playing some chords and came up with a melody that I thought was more [fitting]. And I made it really dark, like in a minor key -- I don't usually stay in a minor key for whole sections. So as an example, I came up with this music, and just really started to like it, even though I felt it was atypical for me because I was doing it for this sort of independent project. So I asked him if he minded if I kept working on it for my record.
B&N.com: And that one has sort of a bluesy, twangy sound.
AM: Yeah, it's got a sort of swampy thing, which is really not my sort of deal. But then I thought, I really like this as a contrast to some of the other things. I felt like it worked for the song, because those lyrics are so desperate.
B&N.com: But you liked them, right?
AM: Yeah, I thought they were terrific! [laughs] "Why don't I arrange it so that you are completely dependent on me, much like a terribly addictive drug." I just love that idea.
B&N.com: And that is a model for many relationships.
AM: Yeah, tell me about it! [laughs] I don't know, maybe I just have a gallows humor. Because that song is really true: People really are like that. I totally know what that vibe is. I've seen that vibe, I've seen other people involved in that kind of thing. It just seems so true. And in a way I think it's really funny because it's so perfect.
August 27, 2002
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