Aimee Mann - @#%&! Smilers (2008)

Aimee Mann - @#%&! Smilers (2008)
I've always been a fan of Aimee Mann from a distance. First having been exposed to her music by way of the movie Magnolia -- directed by her friend Paul Thomas Anderson; and also one of my favorite movies of all-time -- I came to like her brand of mature, insightful songwriting and simple but catchy melodies...from a distance. Her new albums were released and were continually met with critical praise, and I would read about them with interest thinking "Hmm, I like Aimee Mann, I'll have to pick this up", a thought that, for one reason or another, was never met with action.

@#%&! Smilers was bound to have similar fate until, as luck would have it, my part-time bookstore job was giving away a promo copy of the album after it's life as an in-store play had expired. While liking Aimee Mann and actually going out and buying her album for some reason proved too much of a task for me, liking Aimee Mann and taking home a free copy of her album was quite easy.

The album is every bit as solid as I would have expected from her. More simple but catchy ballads about life and love, beautifully sung and written with wit and wisdom. Songwriting has never been Mann's weakness, though. While her songs may strike more of a chord with a demographic I can't possibly relate to as a man in his mid-twenties, she writes them in such a way that any listener can find common ground. "Thirty One Today", for example, is a clear standout; probably one of the few modern songs that both you and your mom would enjoy equally. I imagine this would be my theme song if I were a woman in my thirties, but even now I can relate to its more general themes of disappointment and uncertainty. Her sound has expanded a bit with the use of a synthesizer, among other instruments such as horns and strings. The synth gets a little too 80's for comfort at times, as on "Borrowing Time", but typically it's not a major distraction from the composition as a whole. Overall, @#%&! Smilers is completely worth the time to listen to...as long as you can get the motivation to listen to it.

That's the thing about Aimee Mann's music: it's not really demanding of your attention. It's not remarkable or experimental. It's submissive and unoffensive enough to be played in a bookstore, obviously. Even Mann herself is kind of plain in such a way that if she took a step backward she might melt into the wall (to paraphrase Murakami). But these aren't flaws as much as they are oddly charming once you recognize them. It might've taken a stroke of right-place-right-time luck for me to finally do so, but I'm glad I did.


Score: 7.5/10


"Phoenix"


"Thirty One Today"