Remember those people back in high school who always scowled as they walked past happy couples with roses and chocolates on Valentine's Day? The ones who justified their sour moods by saying that love was just a fleeting, meaningless word?
Well, it's hard to determine whether or not Aimee Mann is one of those people, but the jaded speaker who centers Mann's third studio album, "Bachelor No. 2," certainly is. The album, subtitled "the last remains of the dodo" could just have easily been called "13 Reasons Why I Hate and Fear Love."
In some of the songs, the speaker is a part of the action, while at other times, she is only a third party observer. But the disappointments with love that Mann expresses are not necessarily only related to romance (the contribution of real-life husband Michael Penn suggests that things are going well on that front). Many of the songs can also be applied to Mann's frustrations with a recording industry that constantly supports albums that, while less passionate, are more commercial than hers.
This duality of meaning is reflected in "Nothing is Good Enough," which looks like a final fight in the end of a relationship. The woman tells the man that he always blamed her for whatever went wrong, never taking responsibility for his part in this tug-of-war of wills.
But she also seems to use the song as evidence in her attack on a record producer who rejected all of her ideas: "There's no one else, I find,/ to undermine or dash a hope/ quite like you." Her background vocals with Buddy Judge are heard as a wail; she aches from such rejection. "Nothing" is the speaker's testimony, but she is not trying to convict the man in question, she only wants to acquit herself.
Mann's speaker is again ready to bail out on "Calling it Quits," which Judge's drum loops prove to be an act of defiance. But has she already been burned, or is she just afraid of being exploited in a world "where get-tough girls turn into goldmines?"
On "The Fall of the World's Optimist," which Mann co-wrote with Elvis Costello (Mann wrote all but four of the 13 tracks solo), the speaker answers that question, and chronicles her descent from the world of optimism. "'Cause the eggshells I've been treading/ couldn't spare me a beheading/ and I'll know I had it coming," she explains. We see that in the past she indeed has placed the happiness of others before her own, and has suffered for such charity.
So she takes it upon herself to reprimand others who commit the same folly. She tells her friend in "Susan" that "we kissed for a while to see how it played/ and pulled the pin on another grenade." She no longer believes in such idealistic notions as perfection or meant-to-be, but she does offer this final consolation to Susan, who still sees the glass as half full: "The hope of fusion/ is that the halo will reappear/ it may be pure illusion/ but it's beautiful while it's here."
Unlike Susan, Mann's speaker finds love to be much more detrimental. On "Deathly," one of three songs she grafts from her work on the outstanding "Magnolia" soundtrack (a work that exponentially increased Mann's exposure and is considered largely responsible for finally allowing the release of the long-shelved "Bachelor").
The speaker asks a suitor "don't pick on me/ when one act of kindness could be/ deathly." To her, falling for a man is lethal, dangerous enough to do her in for good. But, in truth, she is her own worst enemy. Just as in "How Am I Different," Mann's speaker expects all relationships to end badly from the get-go, forming her own self-fulfilling prophecy. To her, love is really a contest, with an inevitable winner and loser, and she refuses to put herself in the hot seat.
Two other tracks from "Magnolia" turn up on "Bachelor:" "Driving Sideways" declares that women can be just as heartless as men ("at least you know/ you were taken by a pro") in the disorienting game of love. Penn provides an impassioned performance on the electric guitar here. The other song, "You Do," is one final warning on the trappings of love.
Yet there's another gem on "Bachelor," and it's theme could not be more relevant. "Ghost World" finds Mann's speaker in that no-man's-land between college graduation and embarking on the real world. She's lazy, apathetic, scared -- she's Everywoman. Even armed with all of her knowledge, she still doesn't know what she does want to do with her life.
That's why we love her -- and listen to her.
Grade: A-
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