With sharp insight and meticulous artistry, Aimee Mann forged an enduring career stretching from the waning years of new wave into the peak of adult alternative pop. She first rose to attention fronting the sleek pop group 'Til Tuesday, whose 1985 Top Ten hit "Voices Carry" brought early notice. The band never repeated that commercial breakthrough, yet their final release, Everything's Different Now in 1988, found Mann working alongside Jules Shear and Elvis Costello, clear evidence of the esteem she commanded among fellow songwriters. She began her solo path in 1993 with Whatever, which yielded an alternative rock success via "I Should've Known," though its 1995 follow-up, I'm with Stupid, proved decisive in cultivating the devoted following that has accompanied her across subsequent decades.
Mann guided 'Til Tuesday from 1983 to 1990. Her debut solo album, Whatever, emerged as a more inward, folk-inflected work compared with the band's output and earned favorable notices after its summer 1993 arrival. The record achieved modest commercial traction, charting for seven weeks in the United States and reaching a high of 127. Early the following year she scored a minor success with "That's Just What You Are," featured on the Melrose Place soundtrack. Imago, her label at the time, filed for bankruptcy before the scheduled release of her second solo set in the first half of 1995, prompting her to sign with Reprise Records; Imago nevertheless blocked any new releases. She spent most of that year contesting the impasse until securing her release late in December, after which she joined DGC Records. I'm with Stupid appeared in England toward the end of 1995 and reached American stores in January 1996, again drawing strong reviews but limited sales.
Her profile received fresh momentum in early 2000 with the release of the Magnolia soundtrack, whose song "Save Me" later earned an Academy Award nomination. Originally sold only at concerts, Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo received wider distribution in May. She returned to prominence in mid-2002 with the independently issued Lost in Space. Late 2004 brought Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, a CD/DVD document of that summer's performances. The critically praised Forgotten Arm, a concept album centered on a drug-addicted boxer returning from Vietnam, followed in 2006, the same year she issued the holiday collection One More Drifter in the Snow. @#%&! Smilers arrived in 2008.
Over the next several years Mann explored adapting The Forgotten Arm for the stage, though the project was ultimately set aside. She stayed visible through occasional live appearances and a notable guest spot on the IFC series Portlandia before issuing Charmer, her first album in four years, in September 2012. In 2013 she began performing with Ted Leo under the name the Both, releasing a self-titled album the following year. She next focused on her ninth solo record, the deliberately measured and somber Mental Illness, produced by Paul Bryan and released in March 2017.
That same year Mann commenced work on a musical version of Girl, Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen's 1993 memoir that became the 1999 film starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. Although the stage production remained unrealized by 2021, she recorded the accompanying songs for Queens of the Summer Hotel, again produced by Paul Bryan.
