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This week's essential new releases
Must have ***** Outstanding **** Good *** So-so ** Give it a miss *
Mann-size, top-shelf tunes
Aimee Mann,
The Forgotten Arm
(SuperEgo Records/FMR)
****
AMERICAN songwriter Aimee Mann is someone you want to like just on principle.
For years she's fought the good fight against record companies -- she called one of her albums I'm With Stupid and she wasn't talking about her boyfriend -- hoping to turn her into the next Sheryl Crow/ Avril Lavigne/whoever.
She's kept writing literate, melodic pop tunes at a time when wit, intelligence and songcraft no longer seemed to be a high priority in the dear old record biz, a kind of female equivalent to the likes of Elvis Costello.
What's more, she cites The Band's farewell album/movie/concert The Last Waltz as a source of inspiration for her new album. She recorded it in just five days, all the better to capture the sound of her songs coming to life rather than being buffed to a commercial sheen.
Happily, she has the top-shelf tunes to back up her other admirable qualities, and she's never packed as many of them into the one consistent package as she has on The Forgotten Arm.
What's more, it's a song cycle that actually works as a concept album. If you want it to.
The pulp fiction cover art and booklet within announces the story, which turns out to be about a drug-addicted Vietnam vet and his girl on the run from the daily drudge.
But the listener need know nothing of this to be swept up by these 12 songs of restlessness, longing and heartbreak.
While Mann usually writes on the guitar, she used the piano this time around to try to vary her sound, no doubt under the influence of one of her favourite records, Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection.
Like that album, there is little in the way of production tricks. And Mann loses nothing by playing it straight with her small band, recording live in the studio without overdubs. All the colours that are needed are in the songs, given all the highlights they require by guitars, bass, drums, organ and piano, plus occasional brass and mandolin.
And what songs: the E Street Band-esque...