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BACHELOR NO. 2
Aimee Mann
Pop music must be in a sorry state when an artist must scratch and claw to get a record like this released. Aimee Mann originally recorded her third proper solo album for Interscope/Geffen, but label execs deemed it too uncommercial and refused to put it out. Mann was dumped by the label and needed to buy the record back from Geffen. In the meantime, Mann supplied songs for the soundtrack to Magnolia, which earned her critical kudos, healthy sales, an Oscar nomination and the wherewithal to release Bachelor No. 2 on her own independent SuperEgo imprint. The question remains: What was it about the record that her old label didn't like? This is pop music of the highest craftsmanship -- its melodic gifts, sharply focussed observations about human relationships and tastefully ornamented arrangements suggesting a fantasy collaboration between The Beatles, Carole King and Burt Bacharach. Four tracks here also appeared on Magnolia, but whereas Nothing Is Good Enough was an instrumental on the soundtrack, here it is a barbed missive at the record exec who rejected the CD: "It doesn't really help that you can never say what you're looking for ... Nothing is good enough for people like you." Surely, Bachelor No. 2 is more than good enough for lovers of sweet and sour pop.
Track Listing
1.How Am I Different
02.Nothing Is Good Enough
03.Red Vines
04.The Fall Of The World's Own Optimist
05.Satellite
06.Deathly
07.Ghost World
08.Calling It Quits
09.Driving Sideways
10.Just Like Anyone
11.Susan
12.It Takes All Kinds
13.You Do