The S-word, obviously, is no pejorative here. “Touring and playing in smaller rock clubs with The Both as a trio, with me playing bass, was a real rock band experience.” Now, on the heels of delivering fans a power trio experience, “I think they might be ready for something super-sad and soft,” Mann says, hinting at a smile as she considers the path that brought her to being a one-woman delivery system for mellow gold in 2017. “Since the last project was with Ted Leo, and he certainly has a lot of classic rock, post-punk influences, I tried to meet him in the middle,” she says. That’s admittedly a pendulum swing away from Charmer and The Both, which found her gravitating toward the sounds or energy level associated with her tenure in ‘Til Tuesday in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. So if they thought that my songs were very down-tempo, very depressing, very sad, and very acoustic, I just gave myself permission to write the saddest, slowest, most acoustic, if-they’re-all-waltzes-so-be-it record I could,” she laughs. “I don’t know - people may have a different viewpoint - but that’s my own interpretation of the cliché about me. “I assume the brief on me is that people think that I write these really depressing songs,” Mann says. The album’s rich, incisive, and occasionally wry melancholia started with a mission statement of sorts, prompted by Mann’s own slightly tongue-in-cheek take on her own image. Spines will tingle, and softness and bluntness will find a happy marriage in songs that make up in haunting splendor for whatever they might lack in ebullience. Although there are some electric instruments and occasional drums in the mix, Mental Illness is built for really the first time in her career around acoustic guitar and piano… and then, in another first, augmented astoundingly by starkly beautiful string arrangements. Gone are the Mellotrons and some of the other distinctive signature sounds of yore. 2 and the Magnolia soundtrack, the gorgeous melodies and deliberate gait of this return to contemplative form will seem deliciously familiar.Īt the same time, the arrangements mark a break from anything she’s done before, even those aforementioned landmark albums. If you fell in love with earlier albums like Bachelor No. After a couple of records that saw Mann leaning toward the rockier side (her last solo album, 2012’s Charmer, followed by her 2014 duo project with Ted Leo, The Both), this new one finds the woman who gave the world “Wise Up” again deciding to slow up.
What kind of pre-existing conditions come with Mental Illness? Some fans will see the album as a return to more musically familiar territory. I mean, calling it Mental Illness makes me laugh, because it is true, but it’s so blunt that it’s funny.” “I always probably have a little bit of gallows humor,” Mann says, “and I would hope that people see there’s a little bit of that interspersed in there. “And I said, ‘Oh, you know me - the usual songs about mental illness.’ He said, ‘You should call it Mental Illness!’ I said, ‘I think I will.’” And thus, over the course of a few short seconds, was a classic album title born. “It came from a friend of mine asking me what the record was about,” she explains. For her, its provocative branding comes down to something akin to truth in advertising. Aimee Mann’s first new solo album in five years arrives with a title loaded with possible meanings and intent.
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