Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: Aimee Mann

Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip:

Aimee Mann

In my own, personal, big gay church, there is a wing dedicated to Those of the Heart. These are the singers, songwriters and muses who have spent a lifetime capturing various aspects of the human condition. Frequently, due to the whims of the music industry, their lives were not always their own... but they persevered... ultimately remaining true to their roles as seers of the heart. One such soul?

The crystalline Amiee Mann.

She burst onto the screens of MTV and startled a nation. Was this... a feminist anthem masquerading as a delicious pop song? The amount of sly intelligence and heartfelt sensitivity on display was rare in those days. Could pop be... smart?

Under the moniker of 'Til Tuesday, this diva carved out a unique place, as original as the songs she wrote, offering them up with shiny sharp beats and a voice which communicated more than mere melody and words. The glass half full, half empty, she carried on until contracts were fulfilled and then emerged as a solo artist.

Then the songwriting took on darker hues, exploring even more intimate niches of the common psyche. In doing so, she overturned stone after stone, examining, describing, and demonstrating what she had found there, revealing that which formerly lived in silence, giving voice to parts of ourselves we need to be aware of.

While her fanbase became more focused, it also became more rabid, hungry for each new morsel this talented icon recorded. For, even at the beginning, quality always mattered more than quantity. In this musical icon's world? Musical integrity matters. One thing you can be sure of: if this diva releases a song? It has met her own high standards and is more than worthy of a listen.

So? Do. Listen.

The gospel according to her?

Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.

The topic? The Road To Musical Integrity

"I became friendly with a bass player. He told me about this place called the Berklee College of Music, and said that you didn’t have to audition. They had a summer session you could attend; that was 'Come one, come all.' So I went there and it opened a lot of doors for me. First of all, the ear training - to work on your ear and learn to hear things you’d heretofore not been able to ascertain, individual instruments, chords and where they went, and remember melodies better. I’d just thought, either you could do it or you couldn’t. That plus learning about chord progressions and music theory, and which chords sound good going into other chords - that was really a revelation."

"So I started applying that to writing songs. Which were all terrible. But you do it enough, and you get better at it."

"When you're younger, a lot of your art or music or whatever is more about just trying to look like you're an artist  - trying to look like you're a certain thing or trying to just fit in."

"When I first started writing songs, all I wanted to do was a write a song that sounded like another song so that it sounded like a legitimate thing. Not necessarily a song that expresses anything I'm actually thinking or feeling."

"Here's what I'm mostly thinking or feeling in my early 20s: 'I hope I fit in.' And that's not that interesting. 'I hope people don't think I'm a fraud, I want to be liked.' That seems kind of anti-art, really."

"Older artists kind of don't care about that as much. That's liberating and feels more like what true art should be about."

"One of the things I've really gotten past in the last couple of years is the idea of being made uncomfortable by the way things appear, rather than how things are. Clearly in this business you have to contend with a lot of that."

"There's a lot of music that sounds like it's literally computer-generated, totally divorced from a guy sitting down at an instrument."

"I certainly understand that we're all trying to make a living, but I'm not thinking about that when I'm making it. And if that's your sole motivation, it's going to reflect that narcissistic greed, and you're going to hear it in the music."

"It's more important for me to have a good record with good music and be part of a movie that's good and where the music is used in a really great way. That's the important thing. The other stuff you want to say about it, I don't care."

Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday

Save Me - Aimee Mann

from the 1999 motion picture Magnolia

Goose Snow Cone - Aimee Mann

“I think, to be happy is to be interested and engaged.”

"Anybody who cares less about wanting to be cool, I think, is more interesting."

"I suppose I should be happy to be misread; better be that than some of the other things I have become."

"I didn't want to play these people any more songs and have them say that they weren't good enough. So my response was to just not be able to write anymore. I know that's not the healthiest of responses."

"It really doesn't matter to me what people say about me anymore."

"Listen, I'm out of this system, man, I'm out... I'm doing better than ever. I couldn't be more happy."