Review: Aimee Mann - 'The Forgotten Arm'

Late Friday, with work winding down and colleagues escaping early, I noticed that Aimee Mann’s new album The Forgotten Arm was available for streaming on her website. Having already heard three songs from the record (and finding myself universally impressed), I decided to check out a few more songs. Before long, however, I found myself switching over to the elaborate full album stream so I could hear this gem in its entirety. Centered around the doomed relationship of characters John and Caroline, the concept album traces their initial, impulsive blush of love to its bittersweet (and of course, inevitable) end.

There is nothing revelatory about the story – it is, after all, a story retold in thousands of pop songs, not to mention books and films. But the decision to tie the songs together in such a way still comes off as novel, at least in this era of popular music. It could also come across as brutally precious – in fact, in articles I’ve read about the album, it does. But upon dissecting both the lyrics and the music, I find that it is not only a great idea but a beautifully executed one.

I count myself as a fairly longtime Aimee Mann fan, rediscovering her during the Magnolia phase and digging back through her previous solo records. Bachelor No. 2 was a great record that pulled together the disparate elements of the Magnolia contributions. Lost In Space, however, left me a bit cold despite its intriguing lyrical content. What it lacked, however, was some of the production spark found on Magnolia and specifically from producer Jon Brion.

The Forgotten Arm finds Mann attaining a musical focus that she’s never before achieved. Producer Joe Henry has directed the energy toward the songs, rather than the production itself, and the results are surprising and revelatory. Stripped of any excess technique or adornment, the songs are catchy and direct. Placed in context of the overall theme, The Forgotten Arm achieves a cohesion lacking in all of Mann’s previous efforts. It’s been a fairly long journey for Mann, from being held hostage to her old record contract to forming her own label to finding a voice within the white noise of the music industry. This album is all that Aimee Mann can and should be.

Vocally, Mann is in top form. I didn’t actually count the number of time the word “baby” rolls of her lips (although I could have because the lyrics are reproduced in the Quicktime stream), but every time it does, she turns pop music’s oldest cliché into a mouthful of creamy goodness. Romance is there, not just in the story, but in the delivery and it makes all the difference. Mann glides breezily between earthy lows to a lilting falsetto without missing a beat. This is one of Mann’s primary vocal strengths, executed here to absolute perfection. Unlike much of her previous work, The Forgotten Arm provides Mann an opportunity to put some emotional distance between herself and the subject matter of her songs. Surprisingly, this has inspired her best, and perhaps her most endruring, work yet.

(One other interesting production note: many of the songs are mixed with strong stereo separation, making The Forgotten Arm a fascinating headphone listen.)

You can stream the entire album here.