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Underground > Radio & Music >

Aimee Mann: Lost in Space

13:52 / 31.03.05

Is anyone else here a big Aimee Mann fan? It's hard to describe what listening to her records is like to someone whose never heard them. Have been thinking a lot about 'lost in space' recently. It's a beautiful, devastating album which begins and ends with a car journey to nowhere.

I find listening to Aimee is a bit like reading a Shakespeare play, in the sense that, if genius exists at all, your clearly in its company here, and every conceivable thought and emotion seems to somehow have been "covered".

The theme of disillusionment crops up constantly in tandem with a stockbroker analogy, whose dupes describe her as impassioned/When it's just a front we've fashioned.

The album finale is - I think - a twist an native American poem It Is Not!, in which the American Indians professed themselves resilient and courageous in life on reservations. Mann turns the title on its head, so that all the improvements she hopes personal love will bring won't actually occur. It's not necessarily easy to listen to, but it's fantastic nonetheless.

elpis eutropius

17:37 / 31.03.05

I used to listen to Aimee Mann quite a lot in my late teens, got into her music through the Magnolia soundtrack. By Lost In Space I'd more or less lost interest so I never got round to buying it. It was streamed for free on the website right before it came out and I remember not being very impressed, probably due to crappy sound quality on my PC at the time. So my knowledge of her is based on the Magnolia songs, Bachelor No 2 and I'm With Stupid.

every conceivable thought and emotion seems to somehow have been "covered".

That's what I thought, too, but in a more negative way. The songs don't have a lot of space in them, they pretty much say everything they mean, and while they do that with wit and charm, it leaves me wishing for more subtlety.

20:27 / 31.03.05

I love Lost In Space, I think it's her best album, even though Bachelor no. 2 is also great. The thing I love is that she's got the whole singer/songwriter great lyrics thing down, but also has really great instrumental stuff. Like, it's integrated music, rather than being just her voice, particularly in songs like "Pavlov's Bells" and "Ghost World." Though, I would give the ultimate edge to her Magnolia stuff, which is a huge part of why it's one of my favorite films.

I think she's got a new album coming out soon, called The Forgotten Arm. There's more about it on her site, it's a concept album about a boxer in the 30s, sounds a bit dumb, but I've got confidence she can pull it off.

21:43 / 31.03.05

I tend to listen to this album on road trips -- bought it at her show, which was a really good one (one of the few rock shows I've been to where I notice how great the *sound* is).

I love the mellotrons. I love the lyrics to that "invisible ink" song. I love the dynamics -- she knows when to get quiet and when to get really loud.

It doesn't quite lodge itself in my soul the way other things do... no real earworms or astonishments... but it's really solid & brings me joy.

08:25 / 04.04.05

it's really solid & brings me joy

Really? Have never heard anyone say that about her music before!

it's integrated music, rather than being just her voice, particularly in songs like "Pavlov's Bells" and "Ghost World

yes. Today's the day still sends shivers down my spine. You have the gritty acoustic guitar, but the - not sure - I think a celeste and a wurlitzer - and they sound otherworldly. It's hard to put her voice into either category.

Does anyone know to whom "Goodbye, Timothy" on the end of the LoS album sleeve refers?