Aimee Mann

At 63 years old, Aimee Mann has this physical status:

At Berklee, Mann met the musician Michael Hausman and formed the new wave band 'Til Tuesday, with Mann providing bass and vocals. They released Voices Carry, their debut album, in 1985. The single "Voices Carry" reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and won that year's MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. According to Mann, "Voices Carry" was one of the first songs she wrote. Stereogum described it as "an early indicator of Mann's penchant for character study, drawing outside the lines of boy-meets-girl love songs". The success made Mann an early female MTV star; the Washington Post described her as "a neo-punk pop princess, a new wave glamour girl, all doe eyes, gangly limbs and spiky bleached hair with that long, braided tail snaking out from underneath".

'Til Tuesday released Welcome Home, their second album, the following year. Mann sang vocals with Geddy Lee on the 1987 single "Time Stand Still" by Rush, and appeared in the music video. 'Til Tuesday released their third and final album, Everything's Different Now, in 1988. According to Stereogum, though it "showcased a tremendous development in Mann's songwriting palette", the album was "dead on arrival". Mann said it was "scuttled" by a change of staff at their record company, Epic Records.

'Til Tuesday broke up in 1990 when Mann left to start her solo career. Hausman, Mann's former boyfriend, became her manager. She said later: "['Til Tuesday] were sort of doing, like, post-new-wave dance-pop stuff ... I started to feel like it was not really my thing. Acoustic guitar music was what I was more influenced by and what came naturally to me." Epic did not release Mann from her record contract for another three years, which prevented her from releasing new material. It was the first of several disputes Mann had with record labels, which Hausman said had a lasting effect on her attitude to the music industry.

Mann developed her first solo albums with the producer Jon Brion, who had been a member of the 'Til Tuesday touring band. Mann found working with Brion "very musically exciting and interesting", and said that her songwriting improved with him. Together, they developed a sound that the Stereogum writer Doug Bleggi called "LA alternative". Mann's debut solo album, Whatever, was released in 1993 on the independent label Imago. In 1994, Mann toured with Squeeze as part of their band, playing songs by both acts.

Mann moved to Los Angeles in 1994. After she finished her second album, I'm with Stupid, Imago encountered financial problems and delayed its release. They eventually sold it to Geffen, who signed Mann in 1994 and released I'm with Stupid in 1995. According to Pitchfork, Mann's first two solo albums showed that she was "a witty, self-possessed songwriter", but they did not meet commercial expectations, with sales "in the low six figures". Mann began to be seen as "an 80s pop casualty" who was approaching "has-been status". Dick Wingate, the executive who signed 'Til Tuesday to Epic, described Mann as "the model of an artist who has been chewed up and spit out by the music business", and whose disappointment and bad luck had made her distrustful of record labels.

Later in the decade, Mann became a regular act at Largo, a Los Angeles nightclub that hosted performances from alternative songwriters including Brion, Elliott Smith, Fiona Apple and Rufus Wainwright. This shaped Mann's songwriting; according to Pitchfork, Largo was "so hospitable to her sound that [the owner] once jokingly called it 'Aimee Mann's clubhouse'". In 1997, Mann recorded a cover of "Nobody Does It Better", the theme song of the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, for the album Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project. She also made a cameo in the 1998 film The Big Lebowski as a German nihilist.

Mann received wider recognition after she contributed songs to the 1999 film Magnolia. Her music had inspired the film; the director, Paul Thomas Anderson, another Largo regular, said he "sat down to write an adaptation of Aimee Mann songs". The film features dialogue taken from Mann's lyrics and a sequence in which the cast sing her song "Wise Up". The song "Save Me" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal and an Academy Award for Best Original Song; Mann performed it at the 72nd Academy Awards. The Los Angeles Times described "Save Me" as Mann's masterpiece, which "solidified Mann's stature as an esteemed songwriter". Mann later said it "really gave a blood transfusion to my career. But it wasn't like I went from playing to five people to 5,000 people. It was just a real influx of energy." The Magnolia soundtrack album was certified gold.

Geffen refused to release Mann's third album, Bachelor No. 2, feeling it contained no hit singles. In response, Mann sold homemade EPs of her new music on tour in 1999, which she described as a "DIY fuck-you-record-company-I'm-selling-it-myself move". When Geffen gave Mann the opportunity to leave her record contract, she took it. She said later: "I just didn't want to work with the major labels any more, and I felt like I don't care if I have to sell this out of the back of a van. Because then at least you're in charge of your own destiny."

In 1999, Mann and Hausman formed their own label, SuperEgo Records, and bought the Bachelor No. 2 masters from Geffen. Mann sold 25,000 copies via mail order from her website, a large amount for an independent artist. After she secured a distribution deal, Bachelor No. 2 sold 270,000 copies, outperforming I'm with Stupid. Pitchfork described this as a "decisive victory"; a year earlier, the Sony employee Gail Marowitz had predicted that Mann would make more money selling 70,000 albums independently than by selling 300,000 on a major label. Bachelor No. 2 became the 28th-best-reviewed album of the decade, according to the aggregation website Metacritic. The success established Mann as a career artist who could work outside of the major label system.

In 2000, Mann formed the Acoustic Vaudeville project, a mixture of music and comedy, with her husband, the songwriter Michael Penn. Among the comedians joining them were Janeane Garofalo, Patton Oswalt and David Cross. In 2001, Mann sued Universal Music over the release of a greatest-hits compilation, The Ultimate Collection, which she had not authorized and considered "substandard and misleading". She was also a judge at the inaugural Annual Independent Music Awards, an award for promoting independent musicians. She judged the awards again in 2011.

Following Magnolia, Mann entered a period of depression and had a breakdown. She referenced the experience obliquely in her fourth album, Lost in Space, released in August 2002. In 2004, she released Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, a live album and DVD recorded at a series of shows in Brooklyn, New York City. She also appeared in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, performing "This Is How It Goes" and "Pavlov's Bell", and on The West Wing, performing a cover of James Taylor's "Shed a Little Light". Mann sang on "That's Me Trying" from William Shatner's 2004 album Has Been, cowritten and produced by Ben Folds.

In May 2005, Mann released her fifth album, The Forgotten Arm, a concept album set in the 1970s about two lovers who meet at the Virginia State Fair and go on the run. The album artwork won a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package. In October 2006, Mann released One More Drifter in the Snow, a Christmas album featuring covers and new songs. Mann said she did not enjoy music that combines Christmas songs with modern genres, and instead drew inspiration from Christmas records by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and the Vince Guaraldi Trio. In 2007, Mann contributed two original songs, "The Great Beyond" and "At the Edge of the World", to the soundtrack to the film Arctic Tale. She also contributed vocals to "Unforgiven" on John Doe's album A Year in the Wilderness.

In June 2008, Mann released her seventh album, @#%&*! Smilers. It features minimal electric guitar and an emphasis on keyboards. It debuted on the Billboard 200 at number 32 and on the Top Independent Albums chart at number 2. @#%&*! Smilers received mostly positive reviews, with AllMusic writing that it "pops with color, something that gives it an immediacy that's rare for an artist known for songs that subtly worm their way into the subconscious ... Smilers grabs a listener, never making him or her work at learning the record, as there are both big pop hooks and a rich sonic sheen." The music video for "31 Today", directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, features the comedian Morgan Murphy. The artwork, by Gary Taxali, was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.

In May 2011, Mann performed for President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama at a poetry seminar at the White House. She also appeared in a sketch for the Independent Film Channel series Portlandia; she played herself working as a cleaning woman, telling Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein that she needs the second job to support herself.

In 2012, Mann released her eighth solo album, Charmer, comprising songs based on the theme that personal charm is not always to be trusted; one song, "Crazytown", is about an alcoholic "manic pixie dream girl". Two singles were released: "Charmer", with a music video directed by Tom Scharpling, and "Labrador," which features the actor Jon Hamm and references to Mann's music videos with 'Til Tuesday. In the same year, Mann contributed vocals to Steve Vai's album The Story of Light on "No More Amsterdam" and recorded the song "Two Horses" for the soundtrack of the film Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie.

In February 2013, Mann and Ted Leo formed a duo, the Both, and performed shows in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They released an album in April 2014. In 2013, Mann appeared on the Ivan & Alyosha album All the Times We Had. On July 22, she filed a lawsuit against MediaNet, claiming they were distributing 120 of her songs on an expired license agreement. She attempted to claim as much as $18 million in statutory damages. Mann settled out of court in 2015.

In February 2014, Mann appeared in an episode of the animated series Steven Universe as the voice of the Gem fusion Opal. She reprised her role for Steven Universe: The Movie (2019); with Leo, she performed the song "Independent Together". Mann contributed a version of Styx's "Come Sail Away" to the 2014 Community episode "Geothermal Escapism". In 2015, Mann and Leo appeared on Conan performing a song in support of the 2016 US presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee. Mann covered the Carpenters' 1973 single "Yesterday Once More" for a 2016 episode of the HBO drama Vinyl. In October 2016, Mann released a new song, "Can't You Tell", as part of the 30 Days 30 Songs campaign protesting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

In March 2017, Mann released her ninth solo album, Mental Illness, featuring collaborations with the songwriters Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick. It won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. Coulton joined Mann for some performances on the Mental Illness tour. That September, Mann contributed the song "Everybody Bleeds" to an episode of the Netflix series Big Mouth. In January 2018, Mann appeared in an episode of the FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story as a bar singer, performing the 1984 Cars song "Drive". She also appeared in the sitcom Corporate in the episode "The Pain of Being Alive". In 2019, Mann released an expanded 20th-anniversary reissue of Bachelor No. 2 for Record Store Day. She also hosted a podcast with Leo, The Art of Process, interviewing celebrities including Wyatt Cenac and Rebecca Sugar.

In 2020, Mann wrote a song, "Big Deal", for the animated series Central Park, performed by Stanley Tucci. On November 5, 2021, Mann released her tenth album, Queens of the Summer Hotel. It features songs inspired by Girl, Interrupted, the 1993 memoir by Susanna Kaysen about her time in a psychiatric hospital. Mann developed the songs for a musical based on the memoir with the producers Barbara Broccoli and Frederick Zollo, which was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In January 2022, Mann began posting autobiographical comics on Instagram. In April, she displayed a series of her paintings, You Could Have Been a Roosevelt, at City Winery, Manhattan. The paintings are portraits of the "ten worst US presidents" and a selection of first ladies. Mann created them after promising her friend, the politician Antony Blinken, a painting for his White House office. She said that Blinken "declined to have a portrait of Millard Fillmore on his wall, and I can't say I blame him".

Mann was scheduled to open for Steely Dan on their 2022 tour, but was dropped. She suggested that Steely Dan did not think a female singer-songwriter would suit their audience. Donald Fagen, the co-founder of Steely Dan, denied this and instead said that Mann was not "the best matchup in terms of musical style". He apologized, saying he respected Mann and did not realize any commitment had been made. Mann accepted the apology and said it was plausible that Fagen did not know she had been announced for the tour. She covered the Steely Dan song "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)" on tour that year, which Variety took to mean she had forgiven Fagen. On May 22, Mann led a lineup of women performers raising funds for the Magee Women's Institute at Novo, Los Angeles.

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