Feb 13: M is for Aimee Mann

I first heard Aimee Mann's voice on an album which was not hers. It was Rush's album 'Hold your Fire', released in 1987, and she sang on the track 'Time Stand Still' - one of the better tracks on the album. The video for the song is full of chonky 1980's graphics and is badly dated...

Rush had not used a guest vocalist before. 

"We knew that the part she sings on was a feminine part. 

We didn't want to use a keyboard or have Alex or myself sing it, so we started looking for a female singer. It's a very attractive opportunity for us to work with a female singer. We just looked until we found a voice, that was suitable. In listening to Aimee's last record, we loved the way she sang, so we just asked her."

Geddy Lee (1988)

She made a series of albums with the band 'Til Tuesday. They had one huge US hit with a track called 'Voices Carry'.

Their final album, called 'Everything's Different Now' was released in 1988. This was the first album I bought with Aimee as vocalist, and bassist/guitarist. Her bass work is awesome on the early 'Til Tuesday albums. Seek out some YouTube live performances from the time as well. She is fantastic.

She co-founded the new wave band 'Til Tuesday and wrote their top-ten single "Voices Carry" (1985). 'Til Tuesday performed live together in 2025 - more on that in a later post.

I read a review of the final 'Til Tuesday album in 'Q' magazine - more on that in a later post too - and bought the album on the strength of that.

Her first solo album 'Whatever' was released in 1993, and I've bought every album since - each one varied and musically interesting. This was an album I played a huge amount back in the day, including on a drive up to the Isle of Skye.

The 4th of July from her 'Whatever' album sets the tone for the rest of the album and also the nature of her lyrics. 

I have been fortunate to see her play live on her few visits to the UK.

She has been nominated for a Grammy and Oscar too.

For the latter, she lost out to Phil Collins, despite having produced the amazing soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Magnolia' - his best film for many people, although 'One Battle After Another' has won over the critics.

She has written about boxing ('The Forgotten Arm') and mental illness ('Mental Illness') as well as a Christmas album with some proper Christmas songs. 'Mental Illness' won her a Grammy for best Folk Album.

Here's a track I particularly like from her 'Lost in Space' album - which was recently reissued.

I also loved her contribution to a project about Donald Trump. This was originally 30 artists releasing songs in the 30 days before the 2016 election, and expanded with the aim of collecting 1000 songs about Donald Trump for his first 1000 days in office. Her song is called 'Can't you tell?' and dates from 2016... It's even more relevant 2nd time around. 

Aimee's most recent album 'Queen's of the Summer Hotel' is a superb album, which is a series of short songs written for a stage adaptation of Susanna Kasen’s 1993 memoir of being confined to a psychiatric hospital, "Girl, Interrupted".

Here's an acoustic performance of 2 of the songs.

Check out some of Aimee's other music. 

Discography - AI generated - misses out 'Whatever' and some of her singles as well. I have them all... and I need to source them on vinyl...

And to finish, here's that dated Rush video for 'Time Stand Still'

And a video on how she came to sing on the song.

Which 'M' does your algorithm throw up?

And what is your favourite Aimee album?

P.S:

Aimee announced that she is going to be performing her album 'Batchelor No.2' in full at an event later this year, I sent a message back about how we'd love to see that in the UK, and was excited to see this on my Instagram feed: