Hush! Keep it down now...
I'm gonna let you in on a not-so-little secret. After nearly a year of waiting, you're only going to have to wait four more days,'til Tuesday to snatch up a copy of Aimee Mann's sophomore solo effort, I'm With Stupid. But everybody knows that you only have to wait 'til Sunday night to catch a show with the singer at Toad's Place.
Her new album was actually finished nearly a year ago, but it's taken a while - yet again - for Ms. Mann to get her recording contract all straightened out. Over the past year, copies of Stupid spread to those in the know, enough to generate some hot press as long ago as last summer. In fact, a good deal of the critical community recognized that it would have been one of 1995's best albums, except for the fact that it wasn't to be released until 1996.
Such press is nothing new for the former singer of the new-wave band 'Til Tuesday. Their 1985 hit "Voices Carry" left an indelible mark on a lot of our pre-adolescent psyches, thanks to her powerfully penetrating delivery of lyrics more relevant to the elementary school clique scene than any in pop history. Her first solo album, 1993's Whatever, made tons of top 10 lists at the end of its own year.
Mann's performances have garnered similar praise. She stopped by Toad's in July of 1994 on a highly touted 10 show tour, sharing the spotlight with Squeeze. When she was on tour promoting Whatever, XTC's Dave Gregory was a member of the band, getting his first chance to perform since singer Andy Partridge's case of stagefright at one of their earliest shows in the '70s. And guess what? Andy Partridge rose out of a New York audience to duet on an actual XTC tune during that tour! Dear God!
What has Aimee Mann got in store for New Haven? Whatever it is, it shouldn't be missed.
-- Tom Treynor
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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