This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
As Aimee Mann listens to review highlights that variously label her new album, "Mental Illness," as "punishingly sad," "an exquisite wallow," "portraits of tormented characters," even "a well-crafted cloud to ease the punishing brightness of a too-sunny day," she lets slip an amused snort halfway through the list.
Surely it's a badge of honor for a singer-songwriter typecast as a harbinger of melancholia that merely reading descriptions of her record can cause an onset of depression. Given that, surely actually listening to it will require a lifetime prescription of Prozac.
In actuality, these tales of damaged people are gorgeous and transfixing, accompanied as they are by acoustic guitars, pianos and string arrangements.
And for her part, while Mann acknowledged in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune ahead of Saturday's sold-out show at The State Room that she was indeed chasing a darker, sparser vibe this time around following the power-pop leanings of her past two albums, she herself was surprised to find herself "writing something that you're not really intending to be sad, but you look back, almost as a listener, and it is."
That said, there's a very simple reason "Mental Illness" wound up with such a stark tone.
"I think that people are just more interesting when they're complicated, full of conflict. That's really the way most people come. And that really interests me," Mann said. "People full of cheer is not as interesting. I don't know that many people who are unadulteratedly happy or cheerful — there's always some mixture in there."
Mann, who burst onto the scene in the 1980s as the singer for the group 'Til Tuesday, firmly established her reputation as an expert purveyor of the sounds of sadness with her work on the 1999 soundtrack to the film "Magnolia."
It was her self-awareness of exactly that perception of her which inspired the title of her latest record.
"Some friends were over and I was playing them a mix of some of the record. Before I started playing the record, one of my friends said, 'So what is this record about?' And I said, 'Oh, my usual — songs about mental illness.' You know, just kind of brushing it off. Because it really is impossible to explain what a record is about, I think," Mann said. "And then my other friend, Jonathan Coulton, said, 'Oh, maybe you should call it "Mental Illness." ' And really, as soon as he said that — I didn't have a title for it, and as soon as he said that, I was like, 'That is exactly what I'm gonna do.' "
The characters in the album certainly display inclinations toward the name. There are songs about sociopaths, pathological liars, addiction to extreme emotions, compulsions to repeat mistakes and bad behaviors, and one about an Instagram picture of a friend's cat that evokes feelings of longing and disconnectedness.
Ahhhhhh, we were wondering what the hell "Goose Snow Cone" was about. A cat named Goose whose face looks like a snow cone. Naturally.
That track is inarguably the album's sweetest and least barbed, though Mann laments her inability to have expressed the sentiment in a less-oblique fashion.
"I think something like 'Goose Snow Cone' is too obscure, because I know that nobody will understand because it's literally only a personal experience. That's a song that needs an explanation after the fact. That's kind of why I made a video that starred the actual cat — that had a different story, but still a story that was sad and conveyed the atmosphere of watching and waiting, and a nugget of anticipation," she said. "But in general, that's kind of a rule-breaker — there's not a chance anybody else is gonna know that, it's too much of an in-joke. And I would have replaced it if I could have thought of something else, but I just kept singing it and it became this sort of symbol for seeing a thing that makes you realize how homesick you are. If I'd been able to replace it with something I thought would be great and universal, I would have done it. After a while, time runs out and you're like, 'Well, I guess I'm stuck with it.' "
Mann's also probably stuck with her stereotype, too.
Because while she doesn't always agree with the narrative, neither is she inclined to go to extraordinary lengths to change it.
So we probably shouldn't expect a 180-degree turnaround and a follow-up album of obnoxiously upbeat songs, should we?
"I don't think so because there's just nothing interesting [about that]. Music that sounds really happy is usually chord changes that I don't find musically interesting enough. … I need some minor chords and some seventh chords. There needs to be some tension, musically. So then you're already off," Mann said. "And lyrically, if you're trying to write something happy, then what does that mean? I don't even know what that means. It's just more interesting to set up a problem and then analyze it. With a happy thing, it's like, 'Well, there you go, there it is.' I can't do anything with it, it's not a puzzle to be solved, it's just a thing to be described."
Twitter: @esotericwalden —
With Jonathan Coulton
When • Saturday, 9 p.m.
Where • The State Room, 638 S. State St., Salt Lake City
Tickets • SOLD OUT