Aimee Mann
@#%&*! Smilers
SuperEgo

Aimee Mann is like some pop music ninja. Her songs are groups of stealthy earworms that burrow their way into your head and no amount of medical science can remove them. On her latest, Aimee has gone the opposite direction of the semi-concept album Lost In Space and the full-on concept of The Forgotten Arm. @#%&*! Smilers is merely a collection of songs born of the love of making music.

This attitude is what made I’m With Stupid and Bachelor No. 2 her best albums. The writing is loose and breezy and while the subject matter may be a little dark, the songs are easily some of her most accessible. Take one of Smilers highlights, “True Believer”. With its clockwork rhythm-section and its bitter-resolve lyrics,  you can’t help but sing along to the chorus as she confesses, “I want you, but you’re a poltergeist.” There are not many songwriters who can make you hum along as they are breaking up with you.

Included here are a plethora of radio-friendly singles. The fact is she hasn’t written this many songs that would fit into a corporate-radio play list since I’m With Stupid. Songs like “Borrowing Time”, “Thirty-One Tonight” and “Looking For Nothing” stand right next to “Long Shot” and “Red Vines” as some of her catchiest, but nothing is as killer as the lead-off song “Freeway”. Boiled down, Aimee hasn’t written this great of a pop song since “Choice In The Matter”. The addition of a Moog to her arrangements may bring to mind The Car and Fountains Of Wayne, but there is no denying her dark wit in the lyrics that rail against the fake people in Cali: “They’ll sell you all the speed you want if you can take the blackmail.”

There is more here than just the big, pop numbers. Search deeper into the album and you will find beauty. “The Great Beyond” combines two different songs into a wish of someone leaving forever, “Columbus Avenue” retells a friend’s failure and while “Little Tornado” may be considered the weakest song here, it still catches the ear. It’s “Medicine Wheel” that really stands out as Aimee attempts to stretch her own sound with its Billy Joel piano and horn section. It’s the closest thing she’s even done that might be labeled as ‘rock opera’. In fact, it sounds like something Jim Steinman might do if he was on Paxil.

Simply put, Aimee Mann’s latest an extraordinary effort. Its sounds are subtle and demand closer inspection. @#%&*! Smilers (insert your own curse word) is a collection of music by an artist who after years of tearing the record industry apart has the innate ability to turn character study into pop art. Her characters may be a sad lot, but Aimee Mann’s skills as tour guide rival those of Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello.

“Freeway”