Boxing Clever

She gets knocked down, but she gets up again… AIMEE MANN talks to Jonathan Wingate

D espite recording some of the most timeless albums by a female singer-songwriter since Carole King’s Tapestry or Joni Mitchell’s Blue, Aimee Mann has spent the better part of her 20-year career in a tug-of-war with the music industry.

Her Boston based band ’Til Tuesday hit the US Top 10 in 1985 with their first single, Voices Carry, and an album of the same name, but their next two albums failed to sell enough to keep Epic happy.

Having got caught up in a lengthy legal tussle, she eventually got out of the deal, and in 1993 released her near-perfect solo debut, Whatever. It had music critics searching through their dictionaries for superlatives, but commercial success eluded her. Just as she was about to put out her superb second album, I’m With Stupid, her label, Imago, went belly-up, leaving Aimee in legal limbo once again.

She signed with Reprise, but Imago then refused to allow her to release any music. I’m With Stupid eventually appeared on Geffen in late 1995, although the label didn’t really know how to promote Mann. As she started work on her next album, Bachelor No. 2 (Or, The Last Remains Of The Dodo), Geffen was bought out by Interscope, and Aimee Mann was told in no uncertain terms that what she lacked was big …

by Jonathan Wingate
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