CD Odyssey Disc 759: Aimee Mann

I meant to write this next review a couple days ago but I’ve just been too busy to find the time.

Disc 759 is….Bachelor No. 2 (or the last remains of the dodo)

Artist: Aimee Mann

Year of Release: 1999

What’s up with the Cover? The dodo, as it would have been depicted by some 17^th century naturalist witnessing its imminent demise. Bachelor No. 2 will always go extinct, of course. Next time answer Jim Lange’s flirty questions with more panache.

How I Came To Know It: I discovered this album in reverse, but first hearing the “Magnolia” soundtrack, which features four songs off of it. This led me to the Aimee Mann original, and so here we are.

How It Stacks Up: I have 7 Aimee Mann albums. “Bachelor No. 2” is pretty awesome. I’ll put it third.

Ratings: 4 stars

There aren’t many albums with the power to inspire someone to make an entire movie based on them, but “Bachelor No. 2” is one of them. Paul Thomas Anderson heard this record by Aimee Mann and approached her about using some of the songs on it (plus some new ones) to be the emotional core of “Magnolia,” his movie about disconnectedness, loneliness and longing.

After a couple lackluster solo efforts (“Whatever” and “I’m With Stupid”) Mann kicked it up about ten notches with “Bachelor No. 2.” The record has beautiful melodies, clever songwriting and has a lot to say about the human condition.

Most pop music is little more than a good hook on the melody and one or two clever turns of phrase. “Bachelor No. 2” shows that pop songs can be so much more. Mann has clever lines and hooks, but you don't notice them as much because they are buried in songs that are brilliant from beginning to end.

Mann’s voice loses the cutesy quality of her earlier albums, replaced with a pure and sweet tone that draws you in with its touches of world-weariness and regret. Her topics are choked with collapsing relationships, and the emotionally broken people who drive that collapse. Mann delivers these tales with an incisive observation of human nature with a clarity that makes you wince.

These are songs where the characters know that hanging on just for the sake of it is a fool’s errand. The metaphor shifts as Mann explores her material. “Red Vines” uses carnival imagery, “Satellite” uses a satellite and “Driving Sideways” goes for a car crash, but the effect is always the same; knowing things are falling apart and not having the energy to even parse out the why of it.

“Ghost World” takes a break from the broken-hearted and gets into the bleakness of existential angst, as seen through the eyes of the recently graduated. The song is likely inspired by the graphic novel of the same name and it is a crime that the 2001 movie adaptation didn’t use it. Maybe like Blue Oyster Cult’s “Vengeance (The Pact)” it does too good a job of telling the whole story in the song. "Ghost World"  reflects disaffection and depression in a way that would make Holden Caulfield proud:

“Finals blew, I barely knew

My graduation speech

And with college out of reach

If I can’t find a job it’s down to Dad

And Myrtle Beach.

“So I’m bailing this town – or

Tearing it down – or

Probably more

Like hanging around,

Hanging around.”

The album shifts effortlessly between an earthy guitar strum feel and a more produced sound with horns and piano, depending on what the song calls for. Mann has a great ear for just what way to take a song, although these songs are so elegantly composed they would likely sound good with either treatment.

 The album often feels like a prequel to her 2005 album, “The Forgotten Arm.” “The Forgotten Arm” is the long and tragic collapse of a relationship that has hung on long past when it should have ended. By contrast, “Bachelor No. 2” is an album willing to put an end to things early, and so create tragedy of a different form.

 “Bachelor No. 2” should be depressing, but these songs are just too pretty to make you sad. I got in a lot of listens over the last few days and it just got better each time.

Best tracks: How Am I Different?, Red Vines, Satellite, Deathly, Ghost World, Driving Sideways, Susan, You Do.