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Solo
career:
In 1993 Mann released Whatever, her
first solo album. Promotion suffered
due to the collapse of her label,
Imago. While only a small hit, the
album was critically praised, and
paved the way for her next release,
1995's I'm with Stupid, through Geffen
Records. Again, reviews were positive,
but sales were weak.
Mann met fellow singer-songwriter
Michael Penn in the late 1980s and
with comparable songwriting styles
and record-industry woes to share,
they struck up a friendship during
the recording of Stupid (to which
Penn contributed vocals), which
blossomed into romance and their
1997 marriage. Penn and Mann live
in the Los Feliz neighborhood of
Los Angeles. They have no children,
but Penn has a son from a previous
marriage.
Mann recorded Bachelor No. 2, but
Geffen saw no hit singles in the
material and ordered her back to
the studio. The album languished
while Mann and the label fought.
Meanwhile, film director Paul Thomas
Anderson, for whom Penn and Brion
had composed a soundtrack, became
a close friend. Mann gained greater
public recognition in 1999 —
indeed, more than anything else
since "Voices Carry" —
when she contributed eight songs
to the soundtrack of Anderson's
Magnolia, including the Academy
Award-nominated song, "Save
Me." Anderson deliberately
worked from Mann's lyrics to create
the film's characters and situations.
Mann soon became sought after as
a soundtrack contributor.
Disillusioned with both the ineffectual
promotion and artistic meddling
by her record label, an experience
documented in her song "Calling
It Quits", she struck out on
her own and founded SuperEgo Records
in 1999. Mann self-released Bachelor
No. 2 in 2000, having negotiated
a contract release from Geffen,
and though initially only sold at
concerts and via her website, the
album became successful, allowing
her to secure retail distribution
through SuperEgo. The album, which
included some songs from Magnolia
and new material, was widely admired
and Mann's "more indie than
indie" success was carefully
noted by other musicians.
Mann, Penn, Brion, Fiona Apple,
and other musicians had by this
time developed a subculture around
the Largo nightclub in L.A. Penn
and Mann formed a concept called
Acoustic Vaudeville to recreate
it on tour in California and eventually
on an irregular, ongoing national
tour. The Acoustic Vaudeville shows
intermix music and stand-up comedy;
among the comedians joining them
for individual shows were Janeane
Garofalo, Patton Oswalt, and David
Cross.
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Mann continued her solo career with Lost in
Space (2002), a somewhat more sombre album in
the same vein as Bachelor No. 2. In 2004 her
website released the Lost in Space Special Edition,
which featured a second disc containing six
live recordings, as well two B-sides and two
previously unreleased songs. In November of
that year Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, a live
album and DVD recorded at a series of June 2004
shows in Brooklyn, came out; the two discs were
sold packaged together in either a CD jewel
case or a DVD case.
Mann described her next album, The Forgotten
Arm (2005), as a concept album set in the '70s
about two lovers who meet at the Virginia state
fair and go on the run. The Joe Henry-produced
album, which was recorded mostly live with few
overdubs, was released May 3, 2005. The album's
illustrations and title reflect Mann's interest
in boxing. The album title derives from a boxing
move in which one arm is used to hit the opponent,
causing him to "forget" about the
other arm, which is then used to deliver a harsher
blow. The album received weaker reviews overall,
with critics impressed at the totality but unimpressed
with any individual songs.
Mann also released an EP for Christmas in 2005
as a cover single of "Have Yourself a Merry
Little Christmas" for sale through her
website and iTunes. It also included "Christmastime",
the 1996 duet she recorded with Penn for the
Hard Eight soundtrack, and a cover of "The
Christmas Song". The iTunes version replaced
"Christmastime" with a cover of Joni
Mitchell's "River" and "I Was
Thinking I Could Clean Up for Christmas"
from The Forgotten Arm.
Mann's independence from the industry led to
more overt political stances. She joined Artists
Against Piracy, a group formed to act against
the illegal downloading and file sharing of
copyrighted music from the Internet. Mann, Penn
and Hausman took their experience with SuperEgo
to found the independent music collective United
Musicians, which is based on the principle that
every artist should be able to retain copyright
ownership of the work he or she has created,
in contrast to normal music industry contracts.
In July 2006, Mann announced that she would
be releasing One More Drifter in the Snow, a
full-length Christmas album. The album featured
primarily covers of Christmas standards, as
well as "Christmastime" and an original
song, called "Calling On Mary", written
by Mann and bassist Paul Bryan, who produced
the record. It was released on October 31 in
the US, and late November in the UK.
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Acting:
Mann played the role of a German nihilist who
sacrificed her little toe in the movie The Big
Lebowski (1998).
Mann and her band appear as themselves in the
2002 Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Sleeper",
performing the songs "This Is How It Goes"
and "Pavlov's Bell" at The Bronze. She
has one line in the episode: "Man, I hate
playing vampire towns." "Pavlov's Bell"
also appears on the Buffy soundtrack album Radio
Sunnydale.
She and her band also play themselves in a 2002
episode of The West Wing, performing a cover of
James Taylor's "Shed a Little Light"
at a Rock the Vote concert.
In 2006, Mann guest-starred as herself on an episode
of Love Monkey, "The One Who Got Away".
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| Discography: With
The Young Snakes
1982 - Bark Along with the Young Snakes (EP)
2004 - Aimee Mann & the Young Snakes (compilation)
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With 'Til Tuesday
1985 - Voices Carry
1986 - Welcome Home
1988 - Everything's Different Now
1996 - Coming Up Close: A Retrospective (compilation)
Solo
1993 - Whatever "I Should've Known",
"4th of July", "I've Had It",
"Say Anything", "Stupid Thing"
1995 - I'm with Stupid (1995), "That's Just
What You Are", "Choice in the Matter",
"Long Shot","You Could Make a Killing",
"Sugarcoated"
1999 - Magnolia: Music from the Motion Picture
(soundtrack), "Save Me", "Wise
Up"
2000 - Bachelor No. 2, "Calling It Quits",
"How Am I Different", "Red Vines"
2000 - Ultimate Collection (compilation)
2002 - Lost in Space, "Humpty Dumpty",
"Pavlov's Bell"
2003 - Lost in Space (SACD/Vinyl on Mobile Fidelity
Sound Lab)
2004 - Live at St. Ann's Warehouse (live album/DVD)
2004 - Bachelor No. 2 (SACD/Vinyl from Mobile
Fidelity Sound Lab)
2005 - The Forgotten Arm "Going Through the
Motions"
2006 - One More Drifter in the Snow
Virtual Albums
iTunes Originals - Aimee Mann
Guest appearances and covers
1987 - "The Faraway Nearby" by Cyndi
Lauper (backing vocals) on the album, True Colors.
1987 - "Time Stand Still" by Rush (backing
vocals) on their album, Hold Your Fire
1996 - "Christmastime" with Michael
Penn, played over the credits for the film, Hard
Eight
1996 - "Baby Blue", a Badfinger cover,
appears on the tribute compilation, Come and Get
It: A Tribute to Badfinger
1997 - "Nobody Does It Better", a cover
of the Carly Simon theme for The Spy Who Loved
Me on the compilation, Shaken
& Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project
1999 - "One", a Harry Nilsson cover
for the Magnolia soundtrack
2000 - "Reason to Believe" with Michael
Penn, a Bruce Springsteen cover on the tribute
album, Badlands: A Tribute To
Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska
2002 - "Two of Us", a Beatles cover
with Michael Penn for the I Am Sam soundtrack
2002 - "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds",
a Beatles cover for the I Am Sam soundtrack, European
Edition
2004 - "The Scientist", a Coldplay cover,
appears on the second disc for the Lost in Space
Special Edition
2004 - "Static on the Radio" with Jim
White on his album Drill a Hole in That Substrate
and Tell Me What You See
2005 - "That's Me Trying" by William
Shatner (backing vocals) on his album, Has Been
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