Aimee Mann

Motion Picture Magnolia

Worth buying for fans of film, Mann, Brion, or good music

Review Score:

(6/10)
Aimee Mann, the singer-songwriter, and former frontwoman of Til' Tuesday has a good songwriting voice that has earned her a faithful following, including that of film director Paul Thomas Anderson. Anderson found her music so inspirational and similar in scope to the theme of his then upcoming project, Magnolia that he acquired her to write and record 7 new songs for the film and 1 cover, "One" to set his scenes to. The result was Magnolia, a film that features perhaps one of the most groundbreaking uses of music in film in recent memory, and not just the "Wise Up" singalong that connected every main character in the movie, but let's not forget Claudia Wilson Gator's apartment-building jam of the frenzied masterpiece, "Momentum" whose loud, tortured musings about life in the fast lane not only played in the background to accentuate her chaotic lifestyle as an addict, but involved itself in the story as a major plot point, as without its excessive volume, Officer Jim Kerring would have never knocked on the door about that noise complaint. Or the ending of the film with "Save Me" which seems to sum up Claudia's character without distracting from the moment or being too obvious of a parallel. Without the Aimee Mann songs, the movie, especially the Claudia storyline, would be incomplete, and henceforth, I'm afraid to say, the songs are incomplete without the movie. It's telling that the most successful examples from the soundtrack are songs that directly correlate with scenes from the movie, such as "Momentum," "Save Me," "Wise Up" and "One." The only song that's entirely successful that isn't instantly recognizable from the film is "Build That Wall" a pleasant, airy song with darker undertones, which renders serene yet quietly resonant results. But when Aimee Mann veers off into directions similar to her work on past albums, it loses its drive and pop sensibilites, and settles for independent singer-songwriter fare, when it could have been great intelligent pop like the other songs- songs that appeal to the intelligent masses, not just die-hard Aimee Mann fans. The rest of the album includes a Mann-penned instrumental, that is pleasantly amusing, but not much else; 2 Supertramp songs, which are slightly interesting if only for the fact that they remind you of the brilliant scenes with William H. Macy lusting after Brad the Bartender; a dismissable Gabrielle song; and the powerful Jon Brion instrumental "Magnolia," which features chillingly beautiful cello work. However, when it's over, the majority of this CD seems like filler for only 5 songs worth listening to on a regular basis, "One" "Momentum" "Build That Wall" "Wise Up" and "Save Me" which as extraordinary of compositions as they are, the lack of more material like those songs, makes a non-die-hard Mann fan feel a little shortchanged.

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