Aimee Mann Launches New CD

Aimee Mann never disappoints. Her music is consistently magnificent, and her latest solo CD, Lost In Space, is no exception. From her days as the lead singer of Til Tuesday back in the 80s to her current solo career, Mann's body of quality work is unparalleled. She's had hit singles, critical acclaim, won Grammys, and even garnered an Oscar nomination for her work on the soundtrack of the movie Magnolia.

The forty-something Mann got her start in music at a young age. The Virginia native learned how to play guitar as a child and moved to Boston after high school to attend the prestigious Berklee College of Music. While studying vocals and bass there she also joined the band the Young Snakes. Then in 1982 she formed Til Tuesday with fellow Berklee student Michael Hausmann, English guitarist Robert Holmes, and keyboardist Joey Pesce. The group played the Boston area, and their big break came when they won a local radio station's "Battle of the Bands" competition. It garnered the group a lot of attention and they landed a recording contract. Til Tuesday released their debut album, Voices Carry, in 1985. The title track rocketed into the top 10, and MTV played the video constantly.

The band's second album, 1986's Welcome Home, had a couple of minor hit singles in "What About Love" and "Coming Up Close", but 1988's Everything's Different Now was a commercial failure and the band broke up shortly thereafter.

In 1993, Aimee Mann released her first solo album, Whatever, which contained the hit "Stupid Thing." Things didn't go well with the release of her second solo album. I'm With Stupid was ready to be released when her record label, Imago, went under. After a legal battle, she signed to another label and the CD was released in 1995. The song "That's Just What You Are" from the album was featured on the soundtrack of the TV show Melrose Place.

In 1997, Mann married fellow musician Michael Penn. A couple of years later, movie director Paul Thomas Anderson (for whom her husband had written the scores to the movies Boogie Nights and Hard Eight), asked her to write some songs for the movie Magnolia. The song "Save Me" from that soundtrack was nominated for an Oscar, and the CD was named the best of 1999 on this site.

Lost In Space is the second release on Mann's own SuperEgo Records label that she formed with former Til Tuesday bandmate Michael Hausmann. After recording what eventually became Bachelor Number 2, the record label refused to release it because they didn't feel it had a hit single. After years of legal wrangling, Mann was able to regain ownership of the master tapes and released it on her own in 2000. Starting her own label has given Mann more creative freedom. "There were aspects of liberation that hadn't even occurred to me," she said. "I became more creative all-around, in terms of marketing and promoting the record as well as writing and recording."

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