Copyright 1999 The Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles Times
September 5, 1999, Sunday, Home Edition
SECTION: Calendar; Page 60; Music;
LENGTH: 356 words
HEADLINE: POP EYE: Aimee Mann's Post-Interscope Future Blossoming
BYLINE: By STEVE HOCHMAN
BODY:
Aimee Mann has more critical acclaim than record sales, but now two albums
featuring the singer-songwriter's music have been stirring a buzz in the
music business.
Her still-unreleased "Bachelor No. 2"
was in the spotlight earlier this year when it was held up in the Universal
Music Group restructuring that saw the label she was signed to, Geffen Records,
absorbed by Interscope Records. The Interscope team asked her to do more
work on the album, she refused, and after some negotiations she was allowed
to become a free agent.
Now a second Mann-related album is floating
around as well, and it ranks among the most coveted projects in the business:
the soundtrack to director Paul Thomas Anderson's upcoming film "Magnolia,"
a story that was actually built around the seven Mann songs it features.
That album was also supposed to be released
by Interscope, but the company decided recently to let it go. Now, according
to sources close to the film (which will open Dec. 25), it appears headed
to Warner Bros. Records and the label's soundtracks vice president, Danny
Bramson. He's on a major hot streak that includes the multimillion-selling
"City of
Angels," the still-hot "Austin
Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" (an album he co-produced for Maverick
Records with that company's Guy Oseary) and the much discussed Stanley Kubrick
swan song, "Eyes
Wide Shut."
"I know the album is going to be great
and Paul is a genius, and it was the biggest disappointment of my career
to not be able to do it," says Karyn Rachtman, Interscope's vice president
of soundtracks, whose credits include influential hits with "Bulworth"
and "Pulp Fiction," as well as "Boogie Nights," Anderson's
last film. "We had this record. But it was right during the merger,
and people above me determined that we could not release it."
Interscope officials declined to comment,
but a source close to the project says the label felt it had too many soundtrack
projects coming up--including the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle "End
of Days," a "Celebrity Deathmatch" album and the next Baz
Luhrmann film. Deciding it couldn't do justice to all of them, the company
let Mann's go.
As for her own album, Mann and her manager,
Michael Hausman, are planning to release it through their own Superego Records,
with deals for distribution currently in negotiation. In the meantime, though,
they've printed 2,500 copies of a seven-song preview EP that Mann will sell
at upcoming concerts and can also be ordered by mail. For information, e-mail
MannInfo@aol.com.
"We're talking to some major labels,"
says Hausman of the full album's release. "But having been through
all that, there are some basics we need. We'll retain ownership of the master
tapes, so any deal would be for licensing. The best thing that's come of
this is that Aimee is excited about her career again."
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