Aimee Mann: Masterclass in Song

Aimee Mann, the LA-based singer and songwriter described by the UK’s Sunday Times as no less than “one the best pop songwriters alive”, will tour Australia for the first time in September, 2009 taking in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

The artist known for her exquisite and understated pop songwriting skills is something of an industry maverick, and is visiting Australian shores on the back of her 2008 album Smilers. This follows 2005’s daring and acclaimed concept album The Forgotten Arm, and 2006’s album One More Drifter In The Snow, another thematic affair which delved into the whole range of seasonal emotions that people have around Christmas.

This time round, the conceptual approach has been dropped in favour of a simple set of high quality songs on Smilers that Billboard Magazine has called “her most compelling album to date.” That praise has been matched almost everywhere else too, with Mojo Magazine offering a 5 Star review saying that “Smilers is a masterpiece from a songwriter who’s quietly chronicling the blanched last days of a sunshine empire.”

From her work in the 80’s with MTV favourite “Til Tuesday” through her acclaimed solo discs Whatever and I’m With Stupid in the 90s, Aimee Mann has always been at the forefront of contemporary songwriters. The close of the millennium brought her greatest success, with the simultaneous releases of Bachelor No. 2 and the soundtrack to the film Magnolia, which garnered nominations for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and three Grammys. After a decade in which her music often took a backseat to corporate mergers and contractual obligations, the message was clear: Aimee Mann is here to stay.

From her songs “Voices Carry” to the Oscar-nominated “Save Me,” Mann has always been known for her clever, literate, and dryly witty takes on emotional sabotage and self-destruction.

Now, on her seventh solo album Smilers, Aimee presents thirteen melodically-rich, exquisitely-crafted new songs about the inner life of people living far from the bright lights of success or fame. The songs are soulful, empathetic and somehow ultimately hopeful and optimistic. In short, Smilers is a welcome return of unparalleled songcraft.

Don’t miss this opportunity to see one of the great, adult pop artists who takes the form sky high while remaining firmly planted with two feet on the ground. Often compared musically with the Beatles and Badfinger, Aimee Mann is “the Dorothy Parker of rock” (Glamour) capable of pairing the bleakest of poetry with the most soaring, infectious melodies.