Aimee Elizabeth Mann (born September 8, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter. She is noted for her sardonic and literate lyrics about dark subjects, often describing underdog characters. She has released ten albums as a solo artist.
Mann was born in Richmond, Virginia, and studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. In the 1980s, after playing with the Young Snakes and Ministry, she co-founded the new wave band 'Til Tuesday and wrote their top-ten single "Voices Carry" (1985). 'Til Tuesday released three albums and disbanded in 1990 when Mann left to pursue a solo career.
Mann's first two solo albums, Whatever (1993) and I'm with Stupid (1995), earned positive reviews but low sales. She achieved wider recognition for her soundtrack for the Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia (1999). The song "Save Me" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal. Following conflict with her record company, Geffen, Mann released her third album, Bachelor No. 2, on her own label, SuperEgo Records, in 2000. It achieved acclaim and strong sales, establishing Mann as a career artist who could work outside the major label system.
In 2014, Mann released an album with Ted Leo as the Both. Mann also paints and makes comics, and has appeared in films and television series including The Big Lebowski, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Steven Universe, The West Wing and Portlandia. Her awards include the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album for Mental Illness (2017). She was named one of the greatest living songwriters by NPR and Paste.
Early life
thumb|Mann with the Young Snakes in 1981|270x270px
Mann was born at the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, on September 8, 1960. She had two brothers and two stepbrothers. and her parents divorced. She was withdrawn and would not talk, and her father and stepmother sent her to a psychiatrist. She had wanted to learn the bass as a child, but her family ridiculed her, saying it was unladylike. She lived on $25 a week, running in the mornings and practicing intensely.
Career
1980s: 'Til Tuesday
At Berklee, Mann formed a new wave band, 'Til Tuesday, with Mann on bass and vocals. They signed to Epic Records and released Voices Carry, their debut album, in 1985. The single "Voices Carry" reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and won that year's MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. According to Mann, "Voices Carry" was one of the first songs she wrote. Mann sang backing vocals on "The Faraway Nearby" from the Cyndi Lauper album True Colors, released that year. She sang on the 1987 Rush single "Time Stand Still" and appeared in the music video. In 1988, 'Til Tuesday released their final album, Everything's Different Now, with songs influenced by Mann's breakup with the singer-songwriter Jules Shear. It demonstrated a significant development in Mann's songwriting, She said later that her musical interests had changed, and that she was more interested in "acoustic guitar music" than the new wave pop of 'Til Tuesday.
1990–1995: Solo beginnings, Whatever and I'm with Stupid
thumb|upright=1.35|[[Jon Brion co-produced Mann's first three albums.|306x306px]]
Mann recorded her first solo albums with the producer Jon Brion, In 1994, Mann moved to Los Angeles. She also toured as part of the British band Squeeze, playing her own songs and songs by Squeeze.
After Mann finished her second album, I'm with Stupid, Imago encountered financial problems and delayed its release. Imago eventually sold it to Geffen, which signed Mann in 1994 and released I'm with Stupid in 1995. Mann began to be seen as a relic of the 1980s. Dick Wingate, the executive who signed 'Til Tuesday to Epic, described her as "the model of an artist who has been chewed up and spit out by the music business", whose disappointment and bad luck had made her distrustful of record labels. It was included on the Jerry Maguire soundtrack. In 1997, Mann recorded a cover of "Nobody Does It Better", the theme song of the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, for the album Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project. Mann contributed her song "Amateur" to the film Sliding Doors and made a cameo in the film The Big Lebowski as a German nihilist, both released in 1998.
right|thumb|[[Largo (nightclub)|Largo, Los Angeles, where Mann performed regularly in the 1990s]]
In the late 1990s, Mann became a regular act at Largo, a Los Angeles nightclub where Brion hosted performances from alternative songwriters including Elliott Smith, Fiona Apple and Rufus Wainwright. She wrote "Save Me" and "You Do" for the film. another Largo regular, Mann later said the song "really gave a blood transfusion to my career. But it wasn't like I went from playing to five people to 5,000 people. It was just a real influx of energy." It includes Mann's second collaboration with Elvis Costello, "The Fall of the World's Own Optimist". Geffen refused to release the album, feeling it contained no hit singles. which she described as a "DIY fuck-you-record-company-I'm-selling-it-myself move". Instead, she accepted an offer from Geffen to leave her contract, deciding to be "in charge of her own destiny". With Mann's husband, the songwriter Michael Penn, they also established United Musicians, a collective working outside the major label system. Using the money earned through royalties from Magnolia, Mann bought the Bachelor No. 2 masters from Geffen. After she secured a distribution deal, The success established Mann as a career artist who could work outside of the major label system. In 2001, Mann sued Universal Music over the release of a greatest-hits compilation, The Ultimate Collection, which she had not authorized and considered "substandard and misleading". The Boston Globe characterized the lawsuit as one of several challenges to major labels by female musicians that year, including Courtney Love and the Dixie Chicks. That year, Mann was a judge at the inaugural Independent Music Awards, an award for promoting independent musicians. She judged the awards again in 2011. Paste described it as "another marvelous collection of Mann's intimate portraits of lost love and broken people, all set to a wry pop soundtrack that often lilts at the precise moment that one would expect dour melancholy". Mann sang on "That's Me Trying", cowritten and produced by Ben Folds, from William Shatner's 2004 album Has Been.
2005–2007: The Forgotten Arm and One More Drifter in the Snow
thumb|Mann in concert in [[Solana Beach, California, 2005]]
In May 2005, Mann released The Forgotten Arm, a concept album set in the 1970s about two lovers who go on the run. It was produced by Joe Henry and recorded mostly live in the studio. Though The Forgotten Arm received generally positive reviews, the AV Club felt Mann's work was becoming formulaic.
In October 2006, Mann released One More Drifter in the Snow, a Christmas album featuring covers and new songs. It was the first of several Mann albums produced by her bassist, Paul Bryan. Mann said she did not enjoy Christmas songs that use modern genres, and instead drew inspiration from classic Christmas records by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and the Vince Guaraldi Trio.
That year, Mann began an annual tradition of playing Christmas shows combining music and comedy. Guests have included Oswalt, Jeff Goldblum, Grant-Lee Phillips, Nellie McKay and Rich Sommer. Mann described it as a "Christmas show for people who don't really like Christmas". In 2007, Mann contributed two original songs, "The Great Beyond" and "At the Edge of the World", to the film Arctic Tale, and sang on "Unforgiven" from John Doe's album A Year in the Wilderness.
2008—2012: @#%&*! Smilers and Charmer
In June 2008, Mann released her seventh album, @#%&*! Smilers. It features minimal electric guitar and an emphasis on keyboards. It debuted on the Billboard 200 at number 32 and on the Top Independent Albums chart at number 2. @#%&*! Smilers received mostly positive reviews, with AllMusic writing that it "pops with color, something that gives it an immediacy that's rare for an artist known for songs that subtly worm their way into the subconscious ... Smilers grabs a listener, never making him or her work at learning the record, as there are both big pop hooks and a rich sonic sheen." The artwork, by Gary Taxali, was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.
In May 2011, Mann performed for President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama at a poetry seminar at the White House. She also appeared in a sketch for the Independent Film Channel series Portlandia. Mann played herself as a cleaner, explaining that she needs the second job to support herself.
In 2012, Mann released her eighth solo album, Charmer, comprising songs based on the theme that personal charm should not always be trusted. One song, "Crazytown", is about an alcoholic "manic pixie dream girl". Two singles were released: "Charmer", with a music video directed by Tom Scharpling, and "Labrador", with a video featuring the actor Jon Hamm and references to Mann's music videos with 'Til Tuesday. In the same year, Mann contributed vocals to Steve Vai's album The Story of Light on "No More Amsterdam" and recorded the song "Two Horses" for the soundtrack of the film Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. Mann sang backing vocals on the 2013 Heidecker & Wood album Some Things Never Stay the Same.
2013—2019: the Both and Mental Illness
thumb|Mann with [[Ted Leo as the Both in Philadelphia, 2014]]
In 2013, Mann appeared on the Ivan & Alyosha album All the Times We Had. In February, she and Ted Leo formed a duo, the Both, and performed shows in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They released an album on SuperEgo in April 2014; Spin described it as "the best thing either artist has ever done". On July 22, Mann filed a lawsuit against MediaNet, saying they were distributing 120 of her songs on an expired license agreement. She attempted to claim as much as $18 million in statutory damages. Mann settled out of court in 2015.
In February 2014, Mann appeared in the Steven Universe episode "Giant Woman" as the voice of Opal. She reprised the role for Steven Universe: The Movie (2019), performing the song "Independent Together" with Leo. Mann contributed a version of Styx's "Come Sail Away" to the 2014 Community episode "Geothermal Escapism". In 2015, Mann and Leo appeared on the talk show Conan performing a song in support of the 2016 US presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee. Mann covered the 1973 Carpenters single "Yesterday Once More" for a 2016 episode of the HBO drama Vinyl. In October 2016, Mann released the song "Can't You Tell" as part of the 30 Days, 30 Songs campaign protesting Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
In March 2017, Mann released her ninth solo album, Mental Illness, a collection of sparse acoustic songs featuring collaborations with the songwriters Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick. The title was suggested by a friend; Mann said it was a "bald, accurate and funny" description of her songwriting themes. Mental Illness won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. Coulton joined Mann for some performances on the Mental Illness tour. In January 2018, Mann appeared in an episode of the FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story as a bar singer, performing the 1984 Cars song "Drive". She also appeared in the sitcom Corporate in the episode "The Pain of Being Alive". In 2019, Mann released an expanded 20th-anniversary reissue of Bachelor No. 2 for Record Store Day. She also hosted a podcast with Leo, The Art of Process, interviewing celebrities including Wyatt Cenac and Rebecca Sugar.
2020s: Queens of the Summer Hotel and artwork
thumb|Mann with [[Jonathan Coulton in London, 2017]]
In 2020, Mann wrote a song, "Big Deal", for the animated series Central Park, performed by Stanley Tucci. On November 5, 2021, Mann released her tenth album, Queens of the Summer Hotel. It features songs inspired by Girl, Interrupted, the 1993 memoir by Susanna Kaysen about her time in a psychiatric hospital. As of 2025, the musical is scheduled to open in May 2026, staged by the off-Broadway theater company the Public Theater. In January 2022, Mann began posting autobiographical comics on Instagram. She described making comics as a "weird, lonely, insular drive-yourself-crazy activity", unlike the communal nature of music.
In April 2022, Mann displayed a series of her paintings, You Could Have Been a Roosevelt, at City Winery, Manhattan. The paintings are portraits of "the ten worst US presidents" and a selection of first ladies. Mann created them after promising her friend, the politician Antony Blinken, a painting for his White House office. She said that Blinken "declined to have a portrait of Millard Fillmore on his wall, and I can't say I blame him".
Mann was dropped from a supporting slot on Steely Dan's 2022 tour. Donald Fagen, the co-founder of Steely Dan, denied rumors that he felt a female singer-songwriter would not suit their audience and instead said Mann was not a good musical fit. He apologized, saying he respected Mann and did not realize any commitment had been made. Mann accepted the apology and said it was plausible that Fagen did not know she had been announced for the tour. She covered the Steely Dan song "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)" on tour that year. On 6 March, Mann announced a remastered reissue of Lost in Space, followed by an anniversary tour. On 17 May, Mann reunited with 'Til Tuesday for their first show in 33 years at the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena. She said she enjoyed the challenge of preparing for the performance, and had to relearn the songs as her singing style had changed. and recorded a cover of the 1971 Carpenters song "Rainy Days and Mondays" for the television series The Chair Company.
Songwriting
thumb|[[Paul Bryan (musician)|Paul Bryan has produced several of Mann's albums.]]
Pitchfork characterized Mann's music as "refined guitar pop filled with attuned details and characters more often associated with the best short stories". The New York Times critic Ben Ratliff wrote of Mann's "urbane pop songs, melodically rich and full of well-worn sayings fitted into spiky couplets".
In the 1990s, Mann came under pressure from her record company, Geffen, to write hit singles, which she found frustrating. When she attempted to write catchy and lyrically accessible songs, she became bored and could not finish them.
Writing for the New Yorker in 2000, the novelist Nick Hornby wrote that Mann was "a fine, occasionally brilliant singer-songwriter, nothing more, nothing less, and this plainness of purpose has cost her dearly over the last fifteen, mostly calamitous, years". In Pitchfork, Judy Berman described Mann as "a pop flavor of the week who reinvented herself as a singer-songwriter; a folk-rock traditionalist who refused to posture her way into a self-consciously edgy alternative idiom; a woman whose persona isn't seductive or enraged so much as pensive and, at times, embittered; an artist in a youth-obsessed industry who started doing her best work sometime in her late 30s". Robin Hilton of NPR wrote that she was "vastly underrated" and had "a real gift for piercing the heart of something, revealing instead of telling and wrapping it all up in inspired melodies". She said: "I'm sure I'm the only person who thinks any lines or any moments are funny, but that's usually because they're the most accurate and bleak ones." Paul Thomas Anderson wrote that Mann was "the great articulator of the biggest things we think about: 'How can anyone love me?' 'Why the hell would anyone love me?' and the old favorite 'Why would I love anyone when all it means is torture?'"
Mann said Steely Dan was "the one band that I 100% love, with no reservations", Mann wrote "No More Crying" about their relationship. Mann had a two-year relationship with the singer-songwriter Jules Shear, and their breakup influenced the final 'Til Tuesday album, Everything's Different Now (1988).
In 1993, while Mann was recording Whatever,
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|2006
|PLUG Awards
|The Forgotten Arm
|Album Art/Packaging of the Year
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|2013
|rowspan=2|A2IM Libera Awards
|Charmer
|Creative Packaging Award
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|2018
|Mental Illness
|Best American Roots & Folk Album
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| rowspan=2|2022
| rowspan=2|Denmark GAFFA Awards
| Herself
| Best Foreign Solo Act
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| Queens of the Summer Hotel
| Best Foreign Album
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References
External links
- Official website
- Aimee Mann's discography at Discogs
- Aimee Mann at NPR Music