I didn't do a "Musicgoer" entry last Monday, so to make up for my dereliction of duty, here's a bonus CD review for you today. Don't say I never gave you anything!AIMEE MANN
@#%&*! Smilers
(Superego)
*** 1/2 (out of 5)
“I turned stranger into starman in the Sunday New York Times/Like Anne Sexton and her star rats, working backwards ’til it rhymes.” So goes “Stranger Into Starman,” one of the more enigmatic songs on Aimee Mann’s eccentrically titled new CD @#%&*! Smilers. The Sexton reference is telling: Mann’s music shares Sexton’s melancholy turn of mind, even as her lyrics indulge in complicated rhyme schemes that echo Sexton’s fascination with palindromes but whose compulsive cleverness often prevents them from achieving the emotional depth of Sexton’s verse.
That said, @#%&*! Smilers is Mann’s strongest collection of songs since 2000’s Bachelor No. 2: “Little Tornado” and “31 Today” are two of the best evocations of lives drifting nowhere that Mann has recorded yet. But that’s kind of a backhanded compliment, isn’t it? Even with the addition of some tasteful horns and electronics to her acoustic sound, @#%&*! Smilers sees Mann mining some very familiar thematic territory—even her chord progressions seem to be on autopilot. If she doesn’t challenge herself more, her fans might well leave her for more innovative artists—and they might do it sooner rather than later. To phrase it in the form of a palindrome, “Won’t lovers revolt now?”
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