And You Make All the Rest just an Afterthought
Understanding the difficulties audiences — even ones as loyal as the supportive Birchmere clan — can have getting into new music, Mann decided, wisely, to split the baby: one new song for one fan favorite, selected at random from a bucket full of napkins on which wrote out their picks.
(I arrived 45 minutes early and not only had the selection process had ended by then, but the place was packed even more than the Christmas Show I was tardy for.)
The one-for-one ratio proved a good choice considering the marked difference in audience energy levels between more familiar songs and newer stuff.
That's not to suggest that the new stuff isn't any good — it is — just that it doesn't have the context that makes an Aimee Mann song special. Even Magnolia's instant classics, "Wise Up" and "Save Me" are the exceptions that prove the rule.
I, like most who have come to enjoy Mann's music over the last decade, first came into her music during Magnolia, particularly when the ensemble cast all sings "Wise Up," in their own homes, alone — separate, but on the same wavelength, the kind of thing that happens in real-life all the time but would seem cliché if it happened in a movie. We fell in deeper as "Save Me" kept us in our seats all the way through closing credits.
Mann's so-called "fan favorites" have attained that stature by helping us through break-ups, tragedies, promotions, great days, and everything in-between. They have positive anchors in our mind, having made bad situations better and good situations memorable.
Mann fans don't just listen to her music because she "sounds good" — as accuse our roommates who find themselves humming her songs in the shower — they listen because the lyrics mean so much and ring true in their lives. To paraphrase filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, whose Magnolia wouldn't have been possible but for Mann's opening lyrics in "Deathly" (now that I've met you/ would you object to/ never seeing/ each other again) Mann's lyrics come across in a way that makes you think you've heard them, said them, or thought them before.
Article comments
1 - James Dickson
This piece was picked up in Syndication by Reuters (click my URL, I dare you). Pretty cool!
2 - Aimee
I saw Aimee Mann in London recently and had a very similar experience. She couldn't hear herself singing but proclaimed, "I'm so f*cking drunk" which made everyone laugh. What a performer. Great post.