AIMEE MANN - "SAVE ME": ONE OF THE GREATEST SONGS EVER?

OK, a bold headline for a little blog post, but this songs just resonates with me. 

Eleven years ago I worked at MTV2. We pretty much just played music videos. In early 2000, we were playing every video of all time, in alphabetical order. It was fun, but at some point, we took breaks from that to play new music, and one of the new videos we focused on was Aimee Mann's "Save Me" from the Magnolia soundtrack. Of course I knew who she was: I'd seen her with 'til Tuesday opening for Tom Petty years earlier, and I'd heard songs from, and read 5 star reviews of, her first two solo albums Whatever and I'm With Stupid. And of course, she guested on "Time Stand Still" by one of my favorite bands, Rush (he said UN-sarcastically). She was an artist who I'd meant to catch up with at some point. This was that point.

The video for "Save Me" stopped me dead in my tracks. I already knew I wanted to see the movie: I loved Paul Thomas Anderson's previous film Boogie Nights, and the way he portrayed flawed characters without judging. And I loved the actors, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly and Phillip Seymour Hoffman who were in both of the films. (Moore and Reilly were in the "Save Me" video, as was co-star [not star, but co-star] Tom Cruise.) But the video would have sold me on the movie no matter what.  Something about Aimee, with that gaze, singing that song next to these sad but not hopeless characters really spoke to me. It's hard to identify why.

The film and Aimee's soundtrack made a big impact on me. I'm not always the most tolerant person in the world, but I try not to be judgemental, and this song somehow reminds me of that.  Aimee's character - her image in this video, her songs in the film - are also a reminder.  She isn't so accepting that she's an enabler. It's just that she's not judging. She's not damning you while you go down, but she's not aiding in your destruction.  If you want to get better, great: she's there to help.  (I realize I'm superimposing my interpretation here, but isn't that what music's about: how you interpret it?)  It's a good way to be, I think, and this song helps me to try and remember to be that way.  How many songs can actually influence your behavior?  Thanks for writing this one, Aimee Mann, and here's hoping you perform it Saturday night at the South Orange Performaning Arts Center!

Here's the video:

TOMORROW ON THE CATHOLIC CHANNEL: THE SONGS OF AIMEE MANN

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, once a month I go on SIRIUS XM's The Catholic Channel's Busted Halo Show on SIRIUS channel 159 and XM channel 117.  Tune in at 7:20 pm ET (for a free online trial subscription, go to www.sirius.com/freetrial). Thursday nights are "Faith and Culture Thursdays," and we usually discuss the music of a specific artist, and tomorrow night we'll be talking about one of my favorite artists of all time, Aimee Mann.

Ms. Mann might find it odd that her music is being discussed in that forum, but I feel that her songs have a really strong moral code. She comes off as a very strong and together person, but she seems to be surrounded by very flawed characters with a variety of problems.  Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia, which I watched over the weekend preparing for the Busted Halo show, was inspired by a line in Aimee Mann's song "Deathly." In so many songs, she sings about these characters.  You don't get the impression that these people can take advantage of her, she doesn't seem like an "enabler." But she doesn't reject anyone either, and she doesn't judge them. Rather, she seems to give hard advice, the advice that only someone with compassion would bother to give.  That's why I guess I felt she fit in on the show. It's difficult to forgive.  It's easier to just hold a grudge.  But to try and understand other people's problems and why they are the way they are, that's something we should all be able to do, and something religion should help us to do.

There are a lot of parts of Magnolia that stick out to me.  But one big one is towards the end where John C. Reilly's character, pretending he is being interviewed for a "COPS" type show, says, "Sometimes people need a little help. Sometimes people need to be forgiven. And sometimes they need to go to jail." There's a lot of humanity and realism in that statement. Sometimes you can help people if you try.  And sometimes you can't help them. That is sort of at the core of Magnolia, and in a lot of ways, it is at the core of many of Aimee Mann's songs.

Agree?  Disagree?  Tune in tomorrow and call in with your opinions.

AIMEE MANN AND MAGNOLIA

It's hard to believe that Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia came out ten years ago. I remember being curious about it because I loved his prior film, Boogie Nights, and this one featured some of the same great actors, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy and the lovely Julianne Moore. And Tom Cruise was in it as a member of an ensemble cast. But the video for Aimee Mann's "Save Me" which included most of the cast really got my interest - at the time I was working at MTV2, and we played that video often.

Anderson knew Aimee because her husband, Michael Penn, scored Boogie Nights and also made a cameo in it (as the guy who owned the studio that Marky Mark and John C. Reilly cut their album in). At the time, she was going through well-documented issues with her label, Interscope, who was enjoying great success with music by the likes of Eminem and Fred Durst. They weren't sure how to market her,  and didn't hear a single on her new set of songs.  One of those songs, "Deathly," included the line "Now that I've met you, would you object to never seeing each other again?" Paul Thomas Anderson heard that line, which inspired one character named Claudia, and he started writing the rest of the film from there. He wrote about this in the liner notes to the Magnolia soundtrack.

The film also provided Aimee's music a better vehicle than Interscope ever could, not only did it find her audience, but it gave her a bigger audience than ever, and helped her launch the next phase of her career as a truly independent artist (she owns her own label, SuperEgo Records). In some ways, her story is a bit Magnolia-like.  Going through crap with at least three major labels for years led to greater popularity as an independent artist.

I was one of the people who became a fan due to Magnolia. I liked some of her old songs, but I wasn't a huge fan, and this film and soundtrack changed that. Her music figured pretty heavily into the film, not just "Deathly" and "Save Me" but also "Momentum" and "Wise Up," which was used in a scene where different characters sang along with it (I remember lots of the Cruise fans in the theater weren't going along with the premise).  I loved that the songs described people who you might say were "damaged," but did so without really judging them  - which is kind of what Anderson did in the film.  Over the last decade, I've listened to her music as much as anyone else's and I'm always struck by that.  She doesn't seem like someone you could take advantage or, she's not an "enabler," in psychological terms. She doesn't suffer fools lightly (particularly if they work at major record labels!).  But she also doesn't judge, and sort of has hope for characters/people no matter what their flaws are. I find that noble, and often try to be more like that. I'm going to be talking about Aimee Thursday night on The Catholic Channel.  I haven't selected which songs yet, but I'm sure at least one will be from Magnolia.

Here's the video for "Save Me":

BEST OF THE '00S: AIMEE MANN

Aimee Mann is one of my favorite artists of

all time. And, one of the greatest artists of the past decade, if not the best. Not just because of her incredible albums, but also for the way she's conducted herself and her career. She's practically created her own alternate universe where she can exist without having to deal with the music industry. She's certainly earned that right.

A little background. In the '80s, it would be hard to predict how her career would unfold. She was the singer and bassist for a "new wave" band called 'Til Tuesday who had a huge hit with "Voices Carry." But they seemed destined for "one-hit wonder" status. They split up, and Aimee apparently had a hard time getting away from her label to sign with another label to launch her solo career.

In the '90s, she struggled with label problems, which were considerable. She put out two genius albums, 1993's Whatever and 1995's I'm With Stupid on Imago and Geffen, neither of whom knew what to do with them. They are great records and you should check them out.

When Aimee was working on her next album, her label Geffen was being folded into Interscope, who were enthralled with Limp Bizkit and Eminem... not the best enviornment for Aimee's music. They didn't like the album, or didn't get it, and she bought the masters back from them. Meanwhile, the great film director Paul Thomas Anderson, who had worked with Aimee's husband Michael Penn on Boogie Nights, started writing a screenplay around a lyric from one of her Aimee's new songs, "Deathly." That became the film Magnolia, and the soundtrack was mostly made of songs that Aimee was working on at that point. The film and the soundtrack both came out in December of 1999.

Aimee's music got more attention from its role in Magnolia than it had ever had before. Other songs from her late'90s sessions (and some songs from Magnolia) became the independently released Bachelor No. 2. Possibly my favorite album of the '00s. Interscope didn't think that it had commercial appeal, but it went on to sell more than 200,000 copies without major distribution, and it established Aimee as a career touring artist. She can play any song from Magnolia/Bachelor No. 2 and people know all the words.

She followed it up with Lost In Space in 2002, another classic, and on her own label, United Artists. She seemed to tour non-stop for the album for about two years - including some joint touring with Michael Penn. Those shows were so awesome: they played as one band, backing each other up. And the funny thing was, they hired comedian Patton Oswald to open the shows, but also to provide in-between song banter, ostensibly because they aren't funny. The joke is, both Mann and Penn are hilarious anyway (albeit in a drier way than Oswald).

Two more solid albums, 2005's The Forgotten Arm, and 2008's Smilers add up to a great decade. Plus, she started doing these really cool Christmas tours (although this year she's apparently only playing Largo in L.A.) to go along with her holiday album One More Drifter In The Snow. I don't think anyone out there today writes better songs, and no one has more cred (not that that matters, but I just have so much respect for the woman). I don't know if she's working on a new album - I heard she might be doing some kind of screenplay for The Forgotten Arm - but whatever she does, it is worth paying attention to. She's not the type to take requests, but I'd love to see her work with Jon Brion again (he produced Magnolia and Bachelor No. 2). I almost hesitate to write that last sentence - I kind of imagine Ms. Mann reading this and coming up with some dry, searing retort. But, whatever. Hey, if you've read this far, and don't have her albums, pick up Bachelor No. 2 and Lost In Space, you'll thank me.

More Best Of The '00s: Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson