Copyright 1993 Gannett Company, Inc.
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
June 25, 1993, Friday
LENGTH: 320 words
HEADLINE: MUSIC REVIEWS
BYLINE: PATRICK BEACH; The Des Moines Register
BODY:
- "Whatever" Aimee Mann, (Imago)
If you've bothered to remember anything at all about "'Til Tuesday,"
it's probably the band's one and only hit, "Voices Carry," and
the singer with the wild platinum hair. Well, the band is gone, the hair
has been tamed and the singer, Aimee Mann, has her first
solo album out.
So why should you care? Because "Whatever" is a swell collection
of bright, '60s-flavored pop, a far better effort than anybody expected
from this all-but-forgotten artist. Mann's manager put up the cash to cut
this, and it was delivered more or less take-it-or-leave-it to Imago. A
risky strategy, yes, but one that allowed Mann to concentrate on music instead
of business and commercial viability.
Mann's prickly vulnerability makes hers a cause you want to champion. This
is a woman who's been burned a lot in relationships, yet is willing to try
again. On the dive-bombing guitar pop tune "I Should've Known,"
she concludes by spitting, I should thank you, almost. "4th of July"
finds her bumming over another sour relationship, and when they light up
our town I think/what a waste of gunpowder and sky.
The alternately vengeful and mournful lyrics are contrasted by scruffy,
genuinely inspired music. Whether it's a contemplative lament or a straight
rocker, the songs are consistently loaded with good stuff - George Harrison-style
guitar, Beatles-style string arrangements, Roger McGuinn-style 12-string
leads. (McGuinn himself turns up a couple of times, and on "Could've
Been Anyone" actually quotes his own Byrds licks.) And lots of weird
or at least outdated instruments slyly shade the mix - piccolo, bottles,
glockenspiel, oboe, vibraphone and ancient analog keyboards. It's beyond
craftsmanship; it's pop as art.
Best of all, It's not derivative in the least, because Mann is an updater
of a tradition rather than a plunderer of one.
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